Jannie shrugged off my baleful look and frowned at me as only she can. “I know that, Daddy. She’s the principal of my school. I know exactly who she is.”

My daughter already understood many of life’s important connections and mysteries. I was hoping that maybe someday she would explain them to me.

“Damon, do you have a point of view we should hear?” I asked. “Anything you’d like to add? Care to share some good fellowship and wit with us this morning?”

My son shook his head no, but he was smiling, too. He liked Christine Johnson just fine. Everybody did. Even Nana Mama approved, which is unheard of, and actually worried me some. Nana and I never seemed to agree about anything, and it’s getting worse with age.

The kids were already climbing out of the car, and Jannie gave me a kiss good-bye. Christine waved and walked over.

“What a fine, upstanding father you are,” she said. Her brown eyes twinkled. “You’re going to make some lady in the neighborhood very happy one of these days. Very good with children, reasonably handsome, driving a classy sports car. My, my, my.”

“My, my, back at you,” I said. To top everything off, it was a beautiful morning in the early June. Shimmering blue skies, temperature in the low seventies, the air crisp and relatively clean. Christine was wearing a soft beige suit with a blue shirt, and beige flat-heeled shoes. Be still my heart.

A smile slid across my face. There was no way to stop it, to hold it back, and besides I didn’t want to. It fit with the fine day I was starting to have.

“I hope you’re not teaching my kids that kind of cynicism and irony inside that fancy school of yours.”

“Of course I am, and so are all my teachers. We speak Educanto with the best of them. We’re trained in cynicism, and we’re all experts in irony. More important, we’re excellent skeptics. I have to get inside now, so we don’t miss a precious moment of indoctrination time.”