“What’s fifth-date syndrome?” Grace asked.

“You’re not dating much, are you?”

“Well, no,” Grace said. “The husband and two kids have really cramped my style.”

“Pity. See-and don’t ask me why-but on the fifth date, the guys always raise the subject… how should I word this delicately?… of a ménage à trois.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I joke with you not. Fifth date. At the latest. The guy asks me, on a purely theoretical basis, what my opinion is on ménage à trois. Like it’s peace in the Middle East.”

“What do you say?”

“That I usually enjoy them, especially when the two men start French-kissing.”

Grace laughed and they both got out of the car. Grace’s bad leg ached. After more than a decade, she shouldn’t be self-conscious about it anymore, but Grace still hated for people to see the limp. She stayed by the car and watched Cora walk away. When the bell rang, the kids burst out as if they’d been fired from a cannon. Like every other parent, Grace only had eyes for her own. The rest of the pack, uncharitable as this might sound, was scenery.

Max emerged in the second exodus. When Grace saw her son-one sneaker lace untied, his Yu-Gi-Oh! backpack looking four sizes too big, his New York Rangers knit hat tilted to the side like a tourist’s beret-the warmth rushed over anew. Max made his way down the stairs, adjusting the backpack up his shoulders. She smiled. Max spotted her and smiled back.

He hopped in the back of the Saab. Grace strapped him into the booster seat and asked him how his day was. Max answered that he didn’t know. She asked him what he did in school that day. Max answered that he didn’t know. Did he learn math, English, science, arts and crafts? Answer: Shrug and dunno. Grace nodded. A classic case of the epidemic known as Elementary-School Alzheimer’s. Were the kids drugged to forget or sworn to secrecy? One of life’s mysteries.