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polite brush-offs. “I wouldn’t remember. You’d have to check with HR when she picked up her last check.”
    “Whom should I talk to there?”
    “Fernanda can help you.” Michael crossed the room and opened the door. “I hope I’ve been helpful. I’ve got to prep for an important call.”
    Ryan pushed himself up from the chair. Michael had given him something. Now he had calls to make too.

6
    August 12
    S ophia’s new daycare lay in the basement of a brick building, directly off the highway. Colors derived from sweets coated the inside walls: cotton candy pink, sour apple green, grape jelly purple, lollipop red. Such artificial brightness had to be jarring for a kid accustomed to the average wood and white Montessori school.
    It was not yet seven AM . A few aides sat in a circle, strategizing a game plan for the day. Two kids lay in sleeping bags. Most working parents wouldn’t drop their children off for another half hour.
    Guilt tugged at my heart more strongly than Sophia’s grip on my arm. During the drive, she’d become resigned to spending another day away from home. I’d said that Daddy was busy looking for a new job, though I knew he’d spend most of the day in the man cave, online, with a Scotch in hand. Sophia hadn’t fully bought my lie.
    She led me into the room. One of the aides, a Jamaican woman named Earlene, acknowledged her with a warm smile. The others kept talking among themselves.
    “Mommy, stay with me.” Her voice sounded low and scratchy, like a toy running out of batteries. A cold had moved into her throat.
    I bent to her level and held her hands. “I wish that I could, sweetheart, but I need to work. You’ll play with your friends. Daddy will get you before you know it.”
    She pulled away and drifted to a row of child-height shelves, where she selected a book before slumping against the bubblegum-colored wall. To Sophia, a book without an accompanying adult was just a series of illustrations.
    “Excuse me.” The head aide, a heavyset woman named Donna with dyed red hair and a thick South Jersey accent, acknowledged my words with a sideways glance. “I know you have a policy about kids not bringing items from home. But since my daughter comes so early, would it be possible for me to leave her with coloring books? She can put them away when the other kids come.”
    The woman gestured to the two sleeping toddlers. “Most of the children who come at this time take a nap. We’ll start in a bit.”
    “I know. But my daughter is here now. If she had a coloring book—”
    Donna shook her head slowly, as though scolding a young child. “Individual items create fights. It’s better that they all have communal toys. It’s good for kids to learn to share. Dontcha think?”
    I didn’t have time to argue. Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat lay in Sophia’s lap. At least she knew the story. “Sweetheart, Daddy will pick you up this afternoon. You just play and—”
    “He was forty minutes late last time,” Donna said. “I didn’t charge ya, but I can’t keep doing that. He said the car broke down.” The woman’s eyebrows rose, inviting me to join in her disbelief. Two-year-old Maseratis didn’t just quit.
    “I’m sorry. I’ll make sure he’s here today at four.” I looked away from the annoyed aide to Sophia. I blew her a kiss. “I love you.”
    My little girl stretched to catch the phantom smooch. She pressed it to her mouth and then tossed back a pucker with a loud smack. I heard it as I hurried out the door.
    *
    I slipped into my chair at 7:40. Better than 8 AM , when the entire trading desk arrived, but not early enough to beat my boss. Icould see Michael’s blurry form through the glass wall behind me. He sat at his desk, head tilted to his shoulder. On the phone. He’d answered his own call. Shit.
    I logged into his calendar and printed two copies of the day’s itinerary: one for him, one for me. I grabbed a yellow highlighter and a light-blue marker from a