Daniel didn't plan it.
He'd come to pick Nora up from school on Tuesday Julia had a work appointment that ran late and Margaret was at a family thing and the logistics had required him to step in with a directness that left no room for his usual careful preparation.
He arrived at the school gate at three fifteen.
Around him the other parents did their waiting phones out, conversations running, the particular organized chaos of school pickup that he was still learning to navigate without feeling like he'd arrived in a foreign country without a phrase book.
He was early.
He stood slightly apart and waited.
A woman appeared beside him.
Not in the way Vanessa appeared beside people strategic and purposeful. Just beside him, the way people stood at gates when there wasn't much room a
