Grime and Punishment

nearly twenty before she began to realize that they were actually quite interesting, sophisticated people. Most of the time she felt certain her children would come back to liking her when they grew up. But Todd still thought she was okay, and she wanted to hang onto that as long as possible. She needed unreserved love right now more than ever.
    Mike shuffled back through the kitchen balancing a backpack of books and a battered tuba case. Somehow he freed a hand long enough to stuff another donut in his mouth. “Mmrphh?“ he asked, looking at her and then at the door.
    “Sure,“ Jane said, opening it and getting out of the way while he maneuvered through. Willard tried to make an escape, which Jane thwarted with her knee. He backed off with a “well, it was a good try“ look and collapsed pitifully in front of his empty food bowl.
    Thinking she might fool Mike, Jane started toward the driver’s side of the car, but Mike spit the donut out in the driveway and said, “I’m driving.“
    “Mike, don’t throw that food there!“
    “The birds’ll eat it.”
    Jane got in on the passenger side, wishing she had a crash helmet. “Have you got your learner’s permit with you?”
    Mike just rolled his eyes in exasperation and threw the car into reverse. They shot backward, Mike grinning, Jane with her hands splayed on the dashboard. Someday, she told herself, she’d remember this time fondly, but not anytime soon. Mike’s driving made her crazy. This was the sort of thing Steve ought to be here for; teaching a boy to drive was “Dad work.“ It wasn’t that Mike drove all that fast—well, only in reverse—but he was a curb-clipper. After sixteen years of perceiving the road from the passenger seat, he liked the same view, even though he was now sitting four feet farther left. “Watch the jogger!“ Jane shrieked.
    “I see him,“ Mike assured her placidly, swinging out a generous four or five inches to the left.
    They stopped and picked up Ernest, a tubby, pimpled boy who tossed a trombone case in the back of the wagon, and Scott, a tall, California-blond, and altogether shockingly handsome boy who carried no books, only a pair of drumsticks. He bounced into the seat behind Jane and beat an affectionate tattoo on her shoulder. “Hi, Mrs. J. Lovely as always,“ he said, lifting a portion of her uncombed hair with a drumstick.
    Jane half-turned. “I’m more concerned withinternal beauty, Scott. Of which I have loads, I might add. Mike! That truck is stopped!”
    The high school was in the opposite direction from the junior high, and the time lapse had given the same trash crew time to get in her way twice in one morning. They’d probably get some kind of award for that, she thought.
    “Plenty of room,“ Mike said, going around it with a fraction of an inch to spare.
    “Excellent!“ Scott said and beat out a happy rhythm on the window.
    Someday I’ll have hysterics or wet my pants or something equally embarrassing while riding with him, Jane thought. He’d have a regular license someday instead of a learner’s permit, and she wouldn’t have to ride with him anymore. He’d still do awful things with the car, but she wouldn’t have to ride along and be a terrified witness.
    Once the boys were out of the car, Jane was stranded in a snarl caused by a mob of girls surrounding a red Fiat. The high school parking lot made her strangely sad. These boys and girls on the verge of adulthood were all so young and healthy and beautiful. Even the plain ones had a wonderful vitality. But it wasn’t their youth that saddened her. She was handling the march of time fairly well. It was their air of “belonging“ that she envied. They waved and called to each other and moved in graceful shoals, like happy fish. The boys punched each other’s arms in a friendly way; the girls put their heads together, sharing secrets.
    Jane had missed all that. A State Department brat, she’d never attended the same school more than a single year, and several times had been only a semester in one place before her father’s assignments moved them on. There had been benefits, of course. She’d lived all over Europe and much of the Far East, not to mention both east and west coasts of the United States. But those were the kinds of advantages that only the adults who chose such a life could appreciate. To a naturally shy child, it had been agony.
    At least she’d spared her children that unhappiness, she thought as she