I let her hold on to me until Jane came out and called for the kids to line up.

“Hey,” I said, holding Zola back. “You doing okay in school?”

“I guess.”

“Make sure. Keep your grades good.”

“We don’t get grades yet.”

“Okay, well, just—show up. Always on time. Pay attention, do all the worksheets and stuff. Make sure you’re learning. Got it?”

She nodded.

“Zola. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said. I zipped her sweater all the way up and watched her run to join her class.

“Is Zola all right?” Sean asked, suddenly beside me.

“I don’t know.”

“Well,” he said, “could— I mean, could Francine do anything to help?”

My brain was not fast enough to stop my arms from wrapping around him. His huge, selfless heart. The blue-gray knit hat on his dark hair. I hugged him so hard he stumbled a little but righted himself and hugged me.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I collected my wits and pulled back. “Sorry,” I said. “You’re just…you are so kind.”

“Muir.”

“Francine can’t help her. But it’s so nice of you to even think of it.”

He squeezed my hand.

We took the kids, Zola beside me the whole time, tromping through the forest to find late-summer birds’ nests and moss gardens, and I waved to her as the buses pulled away. I brought my lunch to the picnic table to sit if not beside, at least near, Sean.

“Muiriel,” Natan said, eyeing my container of roasted carrots Francine made that morning. “You know women need essential fats in their diet, especially at childbearing age.”

I swallowed wrong and choked until Sean whacked me on my back.

“Jesus Christ, Natan.” I coughed. “What is wrong with you?”

“See, again, this is what’s wrong with our patriarchal society. Men can’t even talk about a woman’s cycle—”

“Not men, just you,” I said. “Especially when you’re offering an unsolicited bad opinion, but if a man who was, say, my doctor wanted to lecture me about my diet, I’d be okay with that.”

“Oh, a doctor.” Natan smiled, nodding in his oily, slow-motion way. “Western medicine strikes again. Those doctors just want to cover up illness and cause more with their pills. Food is the only medicine we need, sister.” He opened a jackknife, cut a huge hunk off a log of salami, and dropped it into his bearded head hole. “Paleo is the way to go, Muiriel. The way our original ancestors ate.”

“Yes, because Neanderthals thrived on carcinogenic nitrates in their lunch meat made of domesticated pigs,” Sean said. Natan shook his head and turned to wipe the knife on his pants.

My cheeks flushed. I moved nearer to Sean despite myself.

“How was Zola when she left?” he asked me, low.

“She was quiet,” I said. “Not good.”

“Well,” Natan said from eavesdropping central, “never can tell what a kid like that is up to.”

It was a day of failing to control my impulses. “A kid like what?” I said.