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mall yogurt shop.
Okay, Mom.”
    My heart ached, and the
missing mom’s face flashed through my mind as I pretended I didn’t
know why she was asking that we not go to the mall. “Sure thing,
honey. We have plenty of time.”
    I watched her carefully as
she and Sarah ordered yogurt and then sat and teased each other
about who could eat more neatly, more quickly, and without brain
freeze. Anna won. Anna almost always won, because Sarah loved to
talk even more than she loved to win contests.
    It was times like these,
when I got to observe my daughter in her natural habitat, that gave
me a peek into the secret corners of my little girl’s heart and
soul. What would I miss learning about her if I didn’t have these
unhurried moments?
    The cell phone rang when
the car turned onto Beech Street, Sarah’s home. I don’t know how
Deb does it, but she seems to know exactly when to call to check on
Sarah’s safe arrival home. Mom ESP, I guess. Or she sets the alarm
on her phone. Something I should learn to do now that I’ve entered
the age of the smart phone.
    Anna dug the phone out of
my purse and answered it on the third ring, just as I pulled into a
neatly edged driveway that led to the three-car-garage Seth envies,
and that he knows he can’t have until I’m back in the workforce
full time.
    Deb’s triple garage comes
thanks to the insurance settlement she got after her husband, also
a cop, got killed on the job. Somehow, Seth forgets that tiny fact
when he thinks about adding one more garage bay to our
house.
    I squashed my desire to
grab the phone and warn Deb not to talk about serial killers around
Sarah. Anna would have heard me, and my objective would be
immediately lost.
    A quick mindsweep dredges
up a question I do need answered. “Ask her if she’s bringing
chocolate cupcakes or vanilla to the PTA bake sale on Friday,” I
managed to blurt out before Anna says, “Mo-om, your battery is
almost dead.”
    She looks at me with
accusatory eyes, and echoes her father. “You have a car charger.
What if you have an accident and the phone is dead?”
    She didn’t wait for me to
reply. “Hi, Mrs. K.” Anna raised her voice and pressed one finger
to her free ear. For some reason, this neighborhood has terrible
cell reception. “We just got here.”
    She turned to Sarah, who
knows the drill and dangled her key for Anna to see. “Yes, she has
her key.” Sarah thanked me and smiled that happy little girl smile
that goes underground when kids hit their teens, climbed out of the
car, and walked up her front steps.
    “ She’s opening the door.
It’s open. She’s inside.” Anna narrated, her gaze glued to Sarah’s
progress. “Yes, she closed the door.”
    Sarah appeared at the
window, her phone pressed to her ear as she waved. Anna said,
“Bye.”
    “ Wait.” I said, just as
the phone gives an annoyed beep and goes dead. “You forgot to ask
about the cupcakes.”
    “ She’s bringing chocolate.
I didn’t have to ask. She told me ‘cause she knows I like
chocolate.” Anna looked through the snarl of receipts and wires and
located the charger and plugged my phone in before she snapped
herself back into her seatbelt. “I think you had a voicemail from
Dad.”
    “ Are you sure? I didn’t
hear it ring.” My phone was new, a present to myself to help make
the mystery shopping go a little more smoothly, because it times,
records voice and video, has a calendar, a camera, and lets me run
a few time-saving apps to streamline the paperwork. Apps that also
made the battery last about as long as a firefly’s glow.
    I don’t know if I should
admit to Anna that this phone is so different from my old phone
that I still can’t tell how to see if I’ve missed a call. She’ll
worry.
    “ I pulled down the status
bar and it said you had two voicemails.”
    Status bar. Right. I
wondered where that was. “Thanks, I’ll check it when we get home.”
If the phone had enough charge by then.
    I backed out of