Catherine McKenzie: Hidden

But since that was never a possibility, I can let myself feel annoyed when I catch a scuffle out of the corner of my eye on a toddler room monitor (they’re arrayed around my desk like I’m the head of security, which, I suppose, I am), and I hear LT’s wail through the wall moments later. I count down the seconds. Three, two…

“Hi, Mandy,” I say as I pick up the phone, not bothering to pretend I don’t know who’s calling. Mandy Holden calls between five and ten times a day with questions ranging from her son LT’s caloric intake to any incident she picks up on from the black-and-white video she watches all day long. (He’s called LT after his father, Trevor, because he’s “Little Trevor” in looks, expression, everything. Around here, when the parents aren’t listening, he’s referred to by the name he’s earned: “Little Terror.” Thank God the video plays like a silent movie.)

“Did you see that, Claire? That other kid—”

“His name is Kyle.”

“Whatever. He pushed LT over! He needs a serious time out, and if you’re not going to talk to his parents, I will.”

“You know I can’t call a child’s parents every time there’s an isolated incident.”

“Isolated incident! He did the same thing last week.”

“Actually, if you’ll recall, it was LT who pushed Kyle that day. Kyle pushed back in retaliation.”

“Retaliation my ass. I saw the whole thing.”

“I’m sorry, Mandy, but I reviewed the video as per your request. LT was definitely the aggressor.” In fact, at this very moment, LT’s meting out his revenge on Sophie Taylor by stealing her snack. I’m sure I’ll be getting a call about that too.

“Are you suggesting my son has anger-management issues?”

“Of course not. I’m simply saying that three-year-olds, particularly three-year-old boys, often get in scuffles. You can’t read too much into it, no matter who the instigator is.” I glance fondly at the picture of Seth at that age pinned above the monitors. He’s smiling with a little-teeth grin, a perfect mixture of mischief and innocence.

“Instigator!”

I pause deliberately and lower my voice. “However, if you’d feel more comfortable removing LT from our care, you’re perfectly entitled to do so.”

I’m playing my trump card. Every daycare in town is full to the max. Mandy isn’t going to give up her slot unless LT’s taken out of here on a stretcher.

“I never said anything about taking LT out of Playthings,” she huffs.

“Well, I seem to be getting a lot of these calls lately, and we do have an extensive waiting list.”

I can hear her grinding her teeth. “I’m expressing concern for my child, Claire. I don’t think that deserves a threat.”

“Now, now, calm down. You know we all love LT. We don’t want him to leave. I want you to be happy.”

“I’m happy,” she says. “LT is happy.”

“That’s great. So we don’t have an issue?”

“No. Everything’s fine. I have to get to a meeting…”

“Talk to you soon.”

We hang up and I rest my head in my hands. I love running Playthings, I really do, but sometimes, particularly on the days when the Mandys of the world are in high gear, I wish I were back in the grown-up world, dealing with grown-up problems.

Of course, that world was full of adults complaining about the way their babies were being treated too.

Much to the chagrin of some of the parents, my lunch hour’s a sacred thing. I don’t accept calls—in fact, I can’t be reached at all, and unless you’re a fellow student at the music conservatory, it’s like I don’t exist.

This is a rule I implemented soon after I started Playthings, when I was still being swept by the waves of sadness connected to why I chucked my law career and started the daycare in the first place.

“You need to make time for something purely yours,” my doctor told me when I complained about having trouble sleeping, and the general listlessness I still felt. “Something that brings you joy. Did you have anything in your life like that? Before?”

I could’ve taken the easy road and told him that what I used to do was run frantically between work and child care, that I hadn’t had time for anything else. I hadn’t had much time for me. Instead I said “Piano” in a small voice, even though I hadn’t played in years. I no longer even owned a piano; we’d left it behind when we bought the house because it wasn’t worth paying the extra money the movers wanted for something I touched only to wipe away the thin layer of dust that marred its glossy surface. It felt like an easy decision then, but now I wasn’t so sure it was the right one.

“Piano it is,” Dr. Mayer replied in a voice that brooked no opposition. And something about it, something about how it was connected to me before, caught hold in my brain.

I left his office and drove to the conservatory, which was located a few minutes away. I parked my car and looked through the windshield at the brightly painted building. Like Playthings, it was clearly a place for kids. I could see the child-painted mural inside made up of bass clefs and off-proportion guitars, a relic from my own childhood, many hours of which were spent in that very building. They gave adult lessons too, they always had, but the whole thing screamed Suzuki Method, and I almost didn’t go in.

But I’d said I would, and so I did.

In a few minutes, I had a lesson scheduled for the next day with Connie. The receptionist had met my tentative request for Mr. Samuels, the kind teacher from my youth, with a blank stare.

Connie was a taciturn Germanic blonde who’d somehow ended up in Springfield. (“How?” I asked early on. “Complicated,” she replied in a clipped tone that invited no further questions. “We work on scales today.”) When she realized that I knew more than basic chord structures, she started giving me increasingly complicated pieces. And once my muscle/brain memory kicked in, I started to make something of them.

I kind of hated Connie in those early days. (I suspect the feeling was mutual.) I complained to Jeff one night, a few lessons in, that Connie had missed her calling as a drill sergeant.

“So quit,” he said as he stripped down to his underwear and climbed under the covers. “If you’re not having fun, fuck it.”

I slipped in beside him, resting my back against the headboard. I flexed my fingers. They were full of a dull ache, like the early onset of arthritis.

“I kind of feel like it’ll be fun eventually. Or maybe that’s the wrong word.” I paused, not knowing how to talk about looking for joy, and how it sometimes felt like it was just a few notes away.

“Well, she can’t be the only game in town, right?”

He was right, but the two younger teachers I tried were so used to the kids-who-were-working-just-hard-enough-to-appease-their-parents that they’d grown soft, their fingers slow. When I sight-read the pieces they’d put in front of me, saying, “Now, this should be a real challenge,” they’d get these funny looks on their faces, like that wasn’t supposed to happen. One of them told me bluntly: “You should be playing with Connie.” The other simply “forgot” our lesson one day and never called me to reschedule. Either way, I got the message.

So back I went and here I am, sitting on the hard piano bench in a room with perfect acoustics playing Debussy’s Reverie. Connie’s standing next to me, waiting to turn the page. My right foot’s working the damper pedal, my left heel’s keeping time. As the haunting melody tumbles out, I lean in, like I’m trying to catch the notes, gather them close. And now there’s un poco crescendo and the music’s flowing through my fingers, into my chest, suffusing my brain. The world is receding, receding, and yet I feel, for lack of a better word, alive.