Characters in Morality

But after Anita Biderman got back from maternity leave, who knew? Probably not another job at PS 321. He was high on the list of subs, but that didn’t mean anything if the regular teaching roster was all present and accounted for. “You’re home early,” he said.

… I Chad knew something was up as soon as he walked in. Nora was home already. Her hours were from eleven to five, six days a week. The way it usually worked, he got home from school at four and had dinner on when she came in around six. She …

“Charlie Green.” After that, silence. Except for Mrs. Reston, walking slowly back and forth above them. Nora had an image—half a dream—of Mrs. Reston with a pedometer attached to the waistband of her pajama pants. Mrs. Reston patiently walking off all those miles between her and dawn. Nora fell asleep.

The agent’s name had a circus-y feel: Edward Ringling. His response to Chad’s pages was long on praise and short on promise.

The real estate agent’s name was Jody Enders. She was very pleasant, but she kept looking at Nora’s right eye. Finally Nora said, with an embarrassed little laugh, “I slipped on a patch of ice while I was getting into a taxi. You should have seen me last week.

… in to St. Saviour to teach second grade (Mr. Cardelli had broken a leg in a car accident), he had finished three chapters. Nora received the pages with a troubled smile. No woman wants the job of telling the man in her life that he’s been wasting his time. He …

… was she above light housekeeping on days when Mrs. Granger did not come in. On those days she made sandwiches or omelets for lunch, and she supposed it was over those lunches that he had drawn out the details of her own life—and done it so carefully and casually that …

Silence descended. Upstairs, Mrs. Reston—whose picture belonged in the dictionary next to insomnia—walked back and forth. Somewhere, maybe in deepest darkest Gowanus, a siren wailed. Fifteen minutes went by before Chad spoke to the end table and the digital clock, which now read 2:17A.

“Are you Nora Callahan?” She thought calmly: I will confess everything. And after the authorities have done to me whatever they do, I’ll go to that boy’s mother and stick out my face and say “Hit me with your best shot, Mama. You’ll be doing both of us a favor.”

I forgot all about them. Would you care to walk a lady to the library, Officer—” She looked at his nametag. “Abromowitz?” “Happy to. Just bring your checkbook.” “Maybe they’ll take my Visa,” she said. He smiled. “Probably will,” he said. • • • That night, in bed. “Hit me!”

… would have said she knew little about the Reverend George Winston and he knew next to nothing about her. In light of his proposal, she realized she had actually told him quite a bit. About the financial treadmill they were on, for one thing. The chance Chad’s book offered to …