For nearly thirty years, Nona Connor had shown up for work at a little past eight in the morning, greeting the equally early-risen director of the Buford Baptist Church Preschool, which was only two miles from Nona’s house in the city of Marietta north of Atlanta. For nearly thirty years, Nona had prepared her classroom for the day. She’d changed the sentence strips on the wall, set out the puzzles upon the puzzle table, arranged the peg boards and sewing cards and interlocking wooden blocks that tiny hands would soon plug and thread and put together and pull apart with serious purpose. Hands that would someday work factory machinery, take blood pressures, draft contracts and steer heavy highway rigs. Nona was old enough now to be teaching some of the children of her first three-year-olds.
And for nearly thirty years, Nona Connor had led her class in the “good morning song”: “Let’s clap hello for Joshua. Clap hello. Let’s wave hello to Heather and Billy and Annaree. Let’s smile hello to Erica and Brock…” And when it came time to lead the children single-file out to the playground, there was even a song that Nona sang which accomplished the task of well-behaved transport with perfect efficiency: “One, two, three. All eyes on me. Four, five, six. Fingers on our lips. Seven, eight, nine. Walking quietly in line. What a funny song we love to sing! Today’s little helper, take your swing!”
There were routines and there was a schedule, and though some flexibility was always allowed — a trip to the filmstrip room on some days, for example, in the place of Quiet Book time, or a visit to the gym on days when there was inclement weather — Nona Connor liked the routine just as much as the children did. It gave her a feeling of security, just as it gave her little three-year-olds a structure and familiarity with the day that kept them feeling safe in an adult-run world of mystery and confusion.
Long after they had left at noon, Nona Connor thought about her children and how to fix what little problems might crop up — the child who spent too long on the potty and held up the class, the boy who wouldn’t let go of his favorite truck, the little girl who always wanted to hold on to Nona’s leg. Nona even dreamed about her children, for these were the only children that Nona would ever have.
Except for Cory. Nona Connor had Cory in her life for three years.
In late July, Nona got a call from Deloria Wasson, the school’s director. Nona was out and the call went to her machine. Nona found it odd that Deloria should be calling, because the first teachers’ planning meeting for the fall wasn’t scheduled for another couple of weeks. It was also odd that Deloria didn’t give her reason for calling. Nona called her friend, Rosanna Walker, who was in charge of the school’s day nursery—“Mother’s Morning Out,” it was called.
Rosanna didn’t have it in her to teach. But she liked taking care of little babies. This job was perfect for Rosanna — so perfect that she had been doing it for the last ten years. During this time, she and Nona had grown quite close.
“So what is it? Do you know?” Nona could hear the sound of Rosanna’s television in the background. “Are you watching something? Do you want me to call back?”
“I’m fine. I’m waiting for Genie Francis. She’s moved over to Days of Our Lives from General Hospital.”
“Why does Deloria want to talk to me?”
“I’ll tell you, but please don’t tell Deloria I told you. I promised her I wouldn’t.”
“Just tell me, Rosanna.”
“Holly’s not coming back next month. I know she waited until, like, the last minute to tell Deloria, but when has Holly ever done anything the right way? Deloria knows a woman who’d be perfect for the three-year-olds but she doesn’t have any experience with four-year-olds. She’s going to ask if you’ll teach the four-year-old class.”
“I don’t have any experience teaching four-year-olds either, Rosanna.”
“You can do anything. You know you can.”
“I want my three-year-olds. I’m going to have Skyler’s little brother Jared this year. And Bethany Towler’s little sister Brianne. I’ve really been looking forward to it.”
“Deloria needs you.”
“Deloria will have to find somebody else. Seniority has to count for something. Even in a church preschool.”
“She isn’t going to like it.”
“She’ll just have to deal with it.”
Rosanna took the remaining two minutes of the phone call to talk about the weekend jaunt to Stone Mountain she had made with her geologist husband, Chase, who said that the two should visit the big carved rock more often and stop taking it for “granite.” Rosanna added that her husband should be on Johnny Carson, he was so funny.
Nona had never married. She had a little boy. She didn’t have him have him. She kept him. She started the paperwork to adopt him. He belonged to Nona’s younger sister Eve. Eve lived in New York City. She was an artist…and a drug addict. Nona took Cory down to Marietta with her to keep him out of the foster care system. And because he was her nephew. And because she loved him and he deserved to have the mother that Eve could never be.
Until, that is, Eve cleaned herself up. And then took him back. Cory was three. A day didn’t go by after that in which Nona didn’t think about Cory. He’d be well into his thirties now. Nona had stopped speaking to her sister after Eve reclaimed her son. It was the most painful thing that Nona ever had to do — giving up that little boy.
He was three.
Rosanna didn’t know all there was to the story of Cory — the fact that Nona had grown to love him as her own. And Deloria didn’t know the story at all. At least not until Rosanna told her.
“We need you to teach the four-year-olds, Nona,” said Deloria the next morning in her office. “Maureen can’t do it. Maureen’s a good assistant, but I’m not at all comfortable giving her full responsibility for that class. This is about that little boy, isn’t it? Your sister’s son.”
“How do you know about Cory?” Nona had tried to stay seated in Deloria’s office, but she was too agitated, too fidgety, and was now standing at the window.
“Rosanna told me. I have to be honest, Nona. You’re a very good teacher and I see how much you love the children. But it isn’t just three-year-olds who need you, and it doesn’t make sense that you only want to teach three-year-olds unless you’ve got some wild idea in the back of your head that someday another little Cory is going to come walking into your room, and, honey, that just makes you sound a little screwy.”
Nona didn’t take offense. “They’re all little Corys in a way, Deloria. I can’t explain it. I just have an affinity for children that age.”
Deloria stuck a pencil in her electric pencil sharpener. She had been sharpening pencils when Nona walked in and now seemed to need something to do with her hands. The pause in the conversation gave Deloria a chance to choose just the right words for what she wanted to say next. She pulled the freshly sharpened pencil from the hole and the sharpener got quiet again.
“Have you seen Cory — I mean, since your sister was granted custody of him again?”
Nona shook her head.
“But why? After all these years, don’t you ever wonder about him?”