Ninety minutes later, Michael, Fi, and Charlie were in Madeline's car, on the way to Charlie's school. Each was silent.

Here's what happened in those ninety minutes, which, as far as Michael and Fi were concerned, felt like nine hours.

Charlie finished up on the potty, then refused to let Fiona wipe his bum, insisting he do it himself. After a brief attempt at reasoning with him, Fiona handed him some toilet paper. The only way he could reach his bottom was in the downward-facing-dog position. So first he succeeded only in smearing everything around and shredding the toilet paper, and then he fell over. That's when Fi remembered Madeline had told her once she still uses baby wipes for Charlie, not toilet paper. Fiona went to look for the baby wipes, and in that time, Charlie sat on their bathroom floor and attempted to put his old, wet diaper back on, because neither Michael nor Fi had remembered to throw it away. Michael found him doing that and startled him with a loud voice, which caused Charlie to cry, which caused Fiona to come running, which caused her and Michael to have to talk really loudly in order to hear each other over Charlie's wails in the echo chamber of the bathroom, which caused Charlie to get even more upset, which caused Michael to think he was having déjà vu all over again.

They finally got that situation resolved, and Fiona managed to clean Charlie's bum while Michael distracted him by making goofy faces and speaking Farsi.

That was only three of the ninety minutes.

Briefly, the other eighty-seven consisted of a lot of the same basic pattern: Charlie doing something that was dangerous or gross or both, Michael and Fiona both forgetting not to shout Charlie's name when they were surprised to see what he was doing, Charlie freaking out, and Michael and Fiona improvising to calm him down.

But somehow, at 8:25, the three of them were mostly clean, all the way dressed, and buckled into their seats. Charlie's school was only 15 or 20 minutes away, and he wasn't supposed to be there until 9:00, but both Michael and Fi instinctively knew to get going while there was a lull in the drama. They would sit in the car for as long as it took, because even if he threw a tantrum, at least he couldn't get out of his car seat.


With traffic, it'd actually taken them a full 30 minutes to get to The Bruce House. Once the home of a wealthy theater owner, Samuel A. Bruce, the sprawling, one-story estate sat on more than an acre of grassy land. Bruce had donated the property to a Miami non-profit foundation that established preschools in underserved areas. That was 25 years ago. Thanks to urban sprawl, yuppies had pushed out the old Cuban people in the last decade and overtaken the area, trying to morph it into the next cool Miami neighborhood. Then the yuppies turned into parents, so The Bruce House was always full to the brim and boasted an 18-month waiting list. Charlie had managed to get in because – wait for it – Sam had a buddy. And it turned out the waiting list for two-year-olds was quite short, because they just needed the school's daycare facilities. It was the four- and five-year-olds, who needed experienced teachers, who had to wait.

As Fiona turned the engine off, Michael unbuckled Charlie from his seat, and Charlie hopped down. He almost took off across the parking lot due to his excitement, but by this time Michael had learned to be ready for just that. He grabbed Charlie's arm the moment his little feet got going. Then he figured it'd be safer to carry him. That kid was just sneaky.

Fi slung Charlie's backpack over her shoulder. They'd miraculously remembered it, though that's all they had to do since Madeline had packed it. When they got to the front door of the school, Fiona pulled on the door, but it was locked. A moment later, it buzzed. She tried it again, and this time it opened.

"Hi there," a tall, slender, Indian woman said kindly. "I saw Charlie on the monitor. You must be his aunt and uncle. Madeline called this morning to let us know what was going on. I'm Manisha Mehti. The kids call me Nisha.

"Hi, Charlie," Nisha grinned. "How are you today?"

Charlie stayed silent, just looking at the woman.

"Yeah, this is Michael, Charlie's uncle. I'm Fiona. You'll have to bear with us as we figure out what we're doing here," she said somewhat apologetically. "We've never done this," she added, as if it weren't painfully obvious.

"Oh, no, you're doing great. You made it here in one piece, so I'd call that a success!" Nisha said brightly. "So is Charlie going to be with us for the whole day, or . . . " she trailed off.

"I think for today at least we'll just do the morning so it's the same as usual for him. So we pick him up at, what, 12:30? Is that right?" Fi asked.

"Yep, 12:30 is perfect. They have lunch from 11:30 to 12:00, then they go outside for recess until 12:20, and then the morning kids get packed up to go home," Nisha explained. "And don't worry. The teachers will have put him in a pull-up before he leaves so you won't have to worry about him having an accident on the way home," Nisha assured them.

Until that moment, neither Michael nor Fiona was worried about him having an accident on the way home, because neither was accustomed to thinking about another person's urinary habits. Nor had either of them considered that Charlie would need lunch. "Ohhhh . . . were we supposed to bring him lunch?" Fi asked nervously.

"No, no, no, no, no," Nisha assured her. Nisha was doing a lot of assuring. "We provide snacks and lunch."

Michael exhaled. Somehow or another, if they had been responsible for bringing lunch, it would have been his fault that they didn't.

"Let me get someone else to sit here for a few minutes, and then how 'bout I walk you all down to his classroom. Is that okay with you, Charlie?" Nisha asked. Fi and Michael were both impressed she talked to Charlie. They'd both forgotten he was there.

"Yeah, that'd be great," Michael said. Nisha spoke to someone briefly on the phone, and very soon a short, stout woman appeared from behind a door.

"We'll just be a minute, Sharon. I'm going to walk them down to Toddler 2," Nisha called over her shoulder as the four of them exited through some double doors.

They walked down an exterior hallway flanked by the building on the left and a large playground on the right. The sturdy, colorful jungle gym and other equipment brought smiles to Michael's and Fiona's faces. Sweet bay magnolia trees canopied the playground, offering some relief to little faces and arms from the unforgiving Florida sun. Hibiscus shrubs boasted bursts of color all around the playground.

"Here we are!" Nisha sang, opening a door about halfway down the hall.

About 11 or 12 little kids, all around Charlie's age, were in action in the large, colorful, friendly room. They weren't doing the same thing, but they were all doing something. Looking at a book. Building a tower. Banging dishes around in a toy kitchen. Crying. Smacking someone on the head. Narrating their activity while sitting on the toilet – with the door open. Nisha noticed Michael staring at the open door, and she said, "Yeah, not too private, is it. All the kids in this room are brand new potty trainers. We have to leave the door open so we can keep a close eye on them and make sure they don't fall in or anything. In the rooms for the older kids, of course, we teach them about privacy and make them close the door."

An older Cuban woman looked up from the fight she was breaking up and saw Charlie and his family in the doorway. "Charlie! Good morning! I'm so glad you're here!" Charlie tried to leap down, but Michael had been holding him tightly for exactly that reason. When he felt him trying to get down, Michael bent down and let Charlie go.

And that was the last time Charlie looked at his aunt or uncle.

Charlie ran to the lady (Ms. Virginia, Nisha told them), who had already kneeled down to his level, and threw his arms around her. Then he trotted over to a large rug that depicted a map of the world where several little boys were playing with wooden blocks. He said something, they said something, Michael understood none of it, and then they all played happily, building tall towers and knocking them down with great flair and robust laughter.

"It's nice to meet you," Virginia was saying to Michael and Fiona. "Nisha told me the situation, so we'll keep a real good eye on Charlie to see if he seems sad or scared or anything about all this. Big change for him."

Michael was surprised by what he considered to be Virginia's generous, loving attitude toward his nephew. A thought entered his mind that it was kind of sick that he'd become so jaded – so truly, truly jaded – by the evil people in his work that he was struck dumb by a teacher who cared about her student.

Fi and Michael got a few more details about Charlie's daily routine and instructions about the pick-up procedures. They thanked Nisha and told her they could find their way out. Then they walked over to the little boy to say goodbye.

"Hey, Charlie," Fiona said, squatting down. "Uncle Michael and I are gonna go now, okay?"

Charlie barely nodded.

"We'll pick you up a little later, okay?"

Nothing.

"Bye, Charlie," tried Michael. He leaned down and patted his back. This time Charlie said bye back. Still didn't turn around.

Michael and Fiona both kissed the top of Charlie's head, said bye again, stood up, and slowly walked to the door, hoping he'd turn around. They knew they should be happy Charlie wasn't upset that they were leaving, mostly because they didn't want him to be upset but also because they knew how loud it was when he was upset. But damn it, after the night they'd had, some acknowledgment would've been nice.

Ah well.

Walking back to the office, Fiona and Michael saw an older group of kids playing on the playground. Several of them were playing some version of cops and robbers. Both Michael and Fi instinctively looked at the scene and silently came to the same conclusion: the robbers had left too large a space unguarded in the north part of the field. Not that they wanted the robbers to win, but they should at least make it a fair fight. Fi started to go over to them to explain the flaw in their tactical position, but Michael, knowing exactly what she was going to do because he sort of wanted to as well, pulled her back by the arm.

"Let it go," he told her. "Breathe."

"We're damn well going to teach Charlie better than that," said Fi angrily.

"Well, obviously."

4