Things were a little better the next morning. Shae had given him a sleeping pill and stood and watched him until he took it. It was a long night, a horrible night of bad dreams, even with the power of the pill. Several times, Shae or his mother had come in to comfort him, calm him down -- it later turned out they had traded off staying up the whole night, just in case.

He was just stirring when Eve walked in -- Shae had called her after he'd gone to bed the evening before, and she'd left before dawn to drive the Trans-Am back to New York again. Over the next couple hours, she managed to talk him up from most of his depression, and get to the core of what he was thinking.

One thing was clear: it wasn't going to be a good idea for him to even think about trying to live in Battery Park Village for the foreseeable future, maybe ever again. Not that it was any big surprise; in talking it out as early as Wednesday, it had seemed like a logical conclusion. But the reality of it for him was worse than even Eve had imagined it would be. "I'd advise you to get clear out of New York for a while, if you could," Eve told him. "There's no reason you can't pull out of this, but being in this town will remind you of it all the time."

"I know you don't want to hear this," his mother told him, "But just let me throw out the idea of you and the boys coming back to Bradford for a while. You could use the break from the constant reminders. I know it wouldn't be good for your job, but maybe it could be a workman's comp thing."

"Right at the moment, it's not the worst idea I've ever heard," Dave agreed, a little to her surprise. "I haven't had a chance to talk about this yet, but I might be able to do it and still keep my job."

"What's this?" Shae said. "I know you weren't real happy about what happened at your office meeting yesterday, but we never got a chance to talk about it."

"Last night put a totally different spin on it," Dave explained. "Right now, it doesn't seem like such a bad idea. I'd still have to work it out with Michelle and Dick, and probably Rob, but maybe it could be done." He went on to explain the meeting the day before, and the still-developing plan to do some of the editorial functions from home offices. He explained his reservations about the idea. "I'm sure it's not a bad idea to hide out somewhere," he concluded. "And maybe only have to come into the office occasionally. It doesn't have to be all the way back to Bradford. In fact, that far away might be on the cumbersome side. But after a few months to let them get the mess cleaned up, well . . ."

"It's a few months to heal," Eve finished for him.

"It won't work in the long run," Dave said flatly. "I'd miss too much from not being in the office. But under the circumstances, Michelle and Dick and Rob might be willing to bend a little for a few months."

"Yes, it probably wouldn't work in the long run," Eve said. "But it really is an idea worth considering, if for no more reason than to not have to be reminded daily."

"Dave," Shae said. "I told you a few days ago you're welcome to stay here as long as you want."

"Shae, you've been incredibly good to me," Dave nodded. "Hell, everyone has. But there's a limit to what I feel I can ask of you."

"Don't think like that," Shae countered. "I also told you I wouldn't mind having a roommate again. This place is pretty big for me to rattle around in by myself, even as big as I am. Besides, it could give you an extra set of hands to help with the boys. They're nice kids; they're starting to grow on me."

"I'm not going to rule it out," Dave said. "But it's another angle I haven't thought about. I guess I had in mind they'd be going back to school at Battery Park when things got worked out. I see now it's not going to happen. They're only in kindergarten, for Pete's sakes, but I need to be thinking about getting them into school somewhere."

"It would do them good," Eve agreed. "Socialization with other kids is important, especially the way things are. It's not an issue that has to be confronted Monday, but you shouldn't let it drag out too long, either."

"My thinking, exactly," Dave agreed. "It doesn't need to be a high-powered thing like at Battery Park . . ."

"Where you've got all the upscale, status-conscious yuppies pushing their kids to peak performance to satisfy parental egos," Eve interrupted. "And the kids often don't understand what's going on."

"My thinking, too," Dave nodded. "I really wasn't thrilled with the idea, but it was convenient and not as bad as some. They seemed to do a fair job of letting kids be kids. You wouldn't believe the preschools some people I know have sent their children to, or what they cost. But to get back to my question, Shae, do you have any idea what the school situation is like here locally?"

"Not a clue," she shrugged. "It's nothing I've had to think about. Well, I can recall hearing people gripe about the public schools when I'm at the grocery store or something, but that counts for nothing."

"I'm not so sure," Dave replied. "I have had reason to look at the public schools in New York. They range from not too bad to downright terrible, depending on the neighborhood. But with all due respect, Eve, knowing how you felt about the place, I wouldn't be surprised if Bradford schools are as good in the lower grades as the some of the best public schools here in the city."

"I never said I didn't get a good education at Bradford," Eve snorted. "My knowledge about the quality is just as dated as yours, but in our day a kid could get a good education in Bradford if they tried, and especially if their parents encouraged it. There are three doctorates I know of out of the eighty-one kids in our class. That's not a bad batting average."

"There were almost four, I was thinking about going for mine until we decided to have kids instead," Dave said. "But that's my point. From what little I've studied the public schools in this city, the odds of finding a general one as good as Bradford don't seem real good. That's not to say the magnet schools aren't pretty good, and the private schools can be among the best anywhere in the country. Julie and I had basically been focusing on private schools for just that reason. It's not easy to get a kid into a reasonably good private school on Manhattan. I have no idea what the situation is here on Staten, just like I have no idea of what the local public schools are like."

"And you have no idea of what it'd be like to get the kids into one anyway," Shae nodded. "As I see it, nothing can be done about it today, and nothing has to be done in the next few days, but it is something you should be focusing on fairly quickly."

"Don't just pass up the idea of Bradford," JoAnne pointed out. "Whatever happens, the boys will have the trauma of starting a new school on top of all this other trauma. At least in Bradford, everything would be small enough you could have a lot of input with the teachers, and the kids could have a lot of one on one if they need it. And, taking care of the kids when they're out of school would be much simpler."

"Because you're there?" Dave nodded.

"Well, yes," she agreed. "And there are others who can help. And, on top of that, I can't believe the kids won't be safer in Bradford than they would be in this city or any other big city. You don't have to watch them as close. That gives them a lot more independence than they might have in the city."

"It's an idea," Dave conceded. "But it hinges on my job. Nothing had been firmed up when I left yesterday, but the idea was being thrown around about the editors coming into the office perhaps a day a week, or one week out of four. The latter might be a do-able thing from Bradford, but it would dump a lot of the child care right in your lap. And, as far as that goes, it can't last forever, a year or two at the most, that's my guess anyway, before it would cause real problems at the office. I'm making good money there; I'd have difficulty doing as well in Bradford, even if there was a job there in my field, which there isn't."

"That's true," JoAnne nodded. "But who says you have to stay on that job? You were saying just a couple minutes ago that you thought you might want to get your doctorate. I'll bet when everything settles out there's going to be a pretty good settlement out of Tuesday -- probably enough for you to get your doctorate, and still send the kids through college, especially considering their trust fund from Julie's family. You could wind up teaching on some quiet campus somewhere where I don't have to worry about you and the kids all the time, like I do when you're living in this city. Dave, you know it scares the hell out of me."

"It scared the hell out of me, too," Dave nodded. "Until I learned about it and got used to it, but there are advantages, too. I'm not sure I can reconvert to living in Bradford again." He let out a sigh. "Look, it's pointless to try to make a decision right now. It's an option, I will grant that. It might even be the best option, considering the questions hanging about the schools. There's another option if the schools here don't pan out, and that's moving somewhere else in the city where there are first-rate public schools."

"If you do that, it probably means I wouldn't be able to help you as much with the boys," Shae pointed out.

"True," Dave sighed. "But it makes my point that a decision really can't be made on what I've got to go on today, and that includes both the local school situation and my job. Besides, I'm not so sure I should be making a decision like that right now, anyway."

Over the course of Saturday, Dave began to get things back under control, enough so that Eve decided to head home Saturday evening. Things were a long way from being under control in his life, but her quiet empathy and gentle skills brought about significant improvement over the course of the day. It didn't mean Shae didn't watch him take a sleeping pill that evening, of course.

Dave woke up early on Sunday morning, before anyone else, the first time since he'd been there he'd done so. Not wanting to wake anyone, he decided to skip the shower for now and do something else.

He headed out to the living room. On Sunday in the old days -- "old days" now meaning anything before last Tuesday -- he'd often take the time to watch the early morning news shows to catch up on what was going on. They didn't take any brain power to watch, and it had allowed him to be really vegetative for a couple hours in the morning, something he rarely managed. He almost turned the TV on, but realized before he did so that the news shows would still be full of the aftermath of Tuesday. Even though they'd only watched a small portion of the coverage, he'd personally lived enough of it to not want to hear any more right now.

He thought about raiding Shae's bookshelves for something, but the thought of reading reminded him he had other reading to do, and could do it now that she'd rescued his laptop from the apartment in Battery Park on Friday. He hadn't thought about it since, but now it seemed like a good idea. He'd been a little behind schedule on Dithyran's Probe, so had taken it home on the laptop to work on it for a couple hours Monday evening after the kids went to bed, a not uncommon occurrence. Of course, there was no idea of what the schedule might be like now, but the Meghan Solari fantasy piece would be a good diversion, if nothing else.

Dithyran's Probe was a pretty big book for fantasy, set in a medieval alternative universe, with a complicated plot and a number of colorful characters with some unusual talents. The protagonist was an apprentice sorceress with exotic tastes; the storyline wandered through several beds and other trysting places without being too suggestive. It was a story possible to lose himself in, and he sat down in the living room with the intent of gladly doing so.

For the most part, he did. He'd loved science fiction and fantasy since he'd been a kid, and had been involved with it as a professional editor to one degree or another since partway through undergraduate school. It was pretty much what he'd worked toward all the way through school, and he was satisfied doing it, even though there were things he might have done that could have been more rewarding financially.

Sitting there slowly going through the book, he was impressed again with the magic that the author could weave into the words -- but as an editor, he also knew an author might not see something cumbersome or misleading. That was his job, to find those things, to make the story smoother reading. He had a reputation for having a fairly light hand for an editor and didn't like to stray too far from the author's creative vision; although there were times he could enhance and sharpen it. Dithyran's Probe managed to do something for at least a few hours that even Eve hadn't managed: the thoughts of the real world, and everything else that had happened the previous week were shoved into the background for a while, lost in a fantasy kingdom with plenty of troubles and tragedy and pain of its own. At least it wasn't real, and he knew it.

It was so enjoyable to be working on the book, reading it carefully and savoring it slowly, that he was barely aware of the other people stirring in the apartment. Unlike most people, authors and editors alike, Dave was comfortable working around a moderate amount of distraction, so long as little of it was directed at him personally. He was barely aware of his mother, Shae, and the boys stirring, barely aware of them having breakfast in the kitchen. The fresh cup of coffee that Shae set next to him was acknowledged, but didn't draw his main attention away from the story, nor did the kids watching kids' shows on the TV. It was easily the most relaxed and normal he had felt since Tuesday morning.

It was a while before he called it good enough for the morning, switched off the laptop, and put it away. It had proved something he'd suspected for several days now, that getting back into a regular routine of work could divert his mind and set him on the road to recovery.

They didn't do much the rest of the day, mostly played with the kids and talked about non-news-related subjects. Dave had been an early reader, mostly due to his mother reading to him lots when he was little, and teaching him to read by the phonics method in an era when most teachers liked "see and say", which in his opinion may have been a little easier to learn but produced lousy adult readers. To be honest, Julie had been one of them. Both Tyler and Cameron were also early readers, and Dave had gone out of his way to teach them phonics, as well. That afternoon made a good time to do some reading with them, to spend a little more time getting back to normal there, too.

But the three good adult readers, all of whom liked to work with kids, drove home one point -- the school issue couldn't be put off for long. Another week or two would do no harm, considering how unsettled things were, but it was something that needed working on; the sooner it was worked out, the sooner his mother could head back home to her real life.

Shae had to head into the studio on Monday; the show was behind schedule now, too, but they'd already decided they weren't going to be frantic about catching up. For that matter, they couldn't be, since the number of hours the very young actors and actresses could work was strictly limited. Most of the main kid characters were actually played by twins, so they could have increased time on the set; on top of that, the kids rotated so no kid was on every episode and only rarely on back-to-back ones.

It was clearly going to be complicated to get around with only Shae's car for the three adults, but it could be made to work for the short time needed. On Monday, Dave and Shae drove over to the studio; he left her there and came back to investigate the local schools, do a little shopping, and run a couple errands.

It was late in the afternoon when he picked Shae up at the studio. He let her drive; she was more used to the rush-hour driving, and she was more comfortable behind the wheel, anyway. Only the left front seat had been modified to give her more room; she had to fold up a little more and have the seat reclined a little to sit on the right. "So, what'd you find out about the schools?" she asked as soon as they were buckled in.

"The local public school, the district the kids would be in, anyway, is at best so-so," he told her. "That's from what I observed, not from what the principal told me. I mean, it would do for kindergarten; it's no ghetto school or anything."

"I have to admit that's about what I expected," she sighed as she pulled into traffic. "I mean, it's not a magnet school or anything. How about a private school?"

"That's a little different," he said. "Just on a quick look, there are three possibilities reasonably close by: St. Stephen's, which is Catholic, Our Savior, which is Lutheran, and Boyce Day Academy. All of them are pretty decent."

"I'm not all much in favor of religious schools," she frowned. "I mean, I'm not anti-religious or anything, but I get the impression that sometimes they lay it on a little thick."

"I'm more or less with you," he nodded. "I know Jennlynn's father did a pretty good job of turning me off of religion, and that was well before they had their falling out, whatever it was. On the other hand, they have a reputation for doing a good job teaching. The kids who go there are the kids of the parents who want them to go there, not just whoever happens to live in the neighborhood. Once you get past the religious part, they do just fine, and they get their graduates into the good colleges if they want to go."

"So how about Boyce Day?"

"That would be my choice," he said. "They strike me as a first-rate operation; they don't mess around, and from what little I could see of them, I liked their approach. They are not cheap, but the money could be handled. I might have to jerk some cash around, take some out of the market account in the short term, but it could be done."

"That seems like the best answer, then," she said. "I take it there's a fly in the ointment. I presume it's getting them accepted in the first place."

"You got it," he nodded. "Although it's not what I thought it would be. The joker is that Cameron is a little younger than they'll accept kids into their kindergarten. Now, getting him into first grade next fall, they say no problem, so long as the application is made before things fill up, and if he's successfully completed kindergarten somewhere else. The kids were in the same class at Battery Park. I'd really rather not have them split up, especially to separate schools."

"Besides, it'd complicate the child care issue," she nodded. "So, what's the alternative? One of the religious schools, or the public school?"

"Any of them," he said. "The public schools are the third choice, mostly because they only have a half-day kindergarten program. Of the religious schools, I think, given a choice, the Lutheran school over the Catholics, mostly because if it has to be religious it's a little closer to my flavor. And, as far as that goes, it does leave Bradford as an option, although it's pretty far down the list at this point, since I don't know how things are going to play at the office."

"Do you have any sort of feeling about it?"

"Not in the slightest. It's a madhouse over there right now, anyway, trying to set up an office, get things rolling, all done on the run. I talked to Dick; they've had some ideas about how they want to do things, but nothing's set in concrete. I think I'll give it a couple days to settle down, then go in and float Bradford past them as a possible option. I expect they'll shoot it down; they'll at least want me to be able to run into the office at a reasonable notice. At least that's how I would want to do it if I was in Dick's shoes. I wouldn't even be considering it if I didn't think I could use the break from the city, to take it easy and concentrate on working for a while to get all this behind me."

"You'd still have to head into Manhattan on occasion, whether you're on Staten Island or in Bradford," she pointed out. "One is a lot less traveling than the other."

"True," he said. "That's why I'm not considering it real seriously. Besides, I don't think it's going to fly at the office, anyway."

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