On a less thrilling note, I also left two messages at the dance studio. Ms. Hamshaw had yet to return my call.

London was all smiles when I spotted her at pickup amongst her classmates, and though she walked more slowly than usual to the car, I could tell already that she’d had a good day.

“Guess what?” she said as soon as she climbed into the car. “My teacher let me be her helper today. It was so much fun!”

“What did you do?”

“I got to help her hand out papers and I got to collect them. And I got to clean the whiteboard with the eraser during recess. But then she let me color on it and I got to erase that, too. And I got to wear a badge that said ‘Teacher Helper’ all day.”

“And you could do all that with your sore wrist?”

“I just used my other hand,” she said, demonstrating. “It was easy. And at the end of the day, I got a lollipop.”

“That sounds like a pretty amazing day. Do you need my help buckling yourself in?” I’d had to do it for her that morning.

“No,” she said. “I think I can do it now. I had to learn to do a lot of stuff with one hand.”

I watched as she tugged at the seatbelt. Though it took a bit longer than usual, she was finally able to manage.

I pulled out of the lot and was beginning to accelerate on the road when I heard her voice again.

“Hey Daddy?”

My eyes flickered to the rear view mirror. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“Do I have to go to dance tonight?”

“No,” I said. “The doctor said that you should probably take it easy this week.”

“Oh,” she said.

“How was your head today? And your wrist?”

“My head didn’t hurt at all. My wrist hurt sometimes but I tried to be strong like Bodhi.”

I smiled. “Is Bodhi strong?”

“He’s very strong,” she said, nodding. “He can pick up everyone in the whole class. Even Jenny!”

I gathered Jenny was big for her age. “Wow,” I said. “I didn’t know that.”

“Do you think I could go over to Bodhi’s house? I want to see Noodle again.”

I flashed to an image of Emily. “I’ll have to ask Bodhi’s mom, but if it’s all right with her, it’s all right with me. Not this week, though – maybe next week, okay? Since you should be resting?”

“Okay,” she said. “I like Miss Emily. She’s nice.”

“I’m glad,” I said.

“And it was fun going to the zoo with her and Bodhi. Can I see the pictures I took on your phone?”

I handed my cell phone back to her and she began scanning through the pictures. She reminisced about the animals she’d seen and what they’d been doing, and as she chattered on, I noticed that London didn’t mention her mother at all, even though she’d seen Vivian the day before.

London, I realized, had grown accustomed to spending time with me alone, for better or for worse.

Because she’d watched television for much of the day before, I didn’t want to park London in front of the electronic babysitter again. At the same time, I had to limit her activity, and we’d already done the coloring thing not too long ago, so I was at a bit of a loss. On a whim, I decided to swing by Walmart on the way home from school. There, I chose a board game called Hoot Owl Hoot! The box explained that the goal of the game was to help the owls fly back to their nest before the sun came up. Each player drew a color card and flew an owl to a color tile on the way to its nest, but if a player drew a sun card, the game moved one step closer to sunrise. All the players won if the owls made it back to their nests in time.

I figured that it was something both of us could handle.

London was thrilled to visit the toy section of the store, and she wandered from one side of the aisle to the other, enthralled by one item after the other. More than once, she pulled an item from a shelf or rack and asked if she could have it; while I was tempted to give in, I didn’t. Nearly everything she’d shown me would have held her interest for only a few minutes after we returned home, and her toy box and shelves were already bursting with neglected stuffed animals and knickknacks.

The game ended up being a hit. Because the rules were simple, London got the hang of it quickly, and she was alternately overjoyed or despondent, depending on whether the owls appeared as if they would make it home in time. We ended up playing four games at the kitchen table before she began to tire.

Afterward, I relented when she asked if she could watch TV for a while, and she lay on the couch, yawning. Maybe it was just Vivian’s voice harping in the back of my mind, but I felt that I still needed to let Hamshaw know about the accident. Because she hadn’t returned my call, however, I felt like I had to do it in person.

I told London about swinging by the studio, loaded her in the car, and spotted Ms. Hamshaw in what I assumed was her glass-walled office. London elected to stay in the car. Ms. Hamshaw had looked over at me as soon as I entered, but took her time before finally making her way over to me.

“London wasn’t in class on Monday,” she observed, arching an eyebrow in apparent displeasure, before I even had a chance to speak.

“She was in a pretty bad accident on her bike,” I said. “I left you a couple of voicemails. She ended up at the hospital. She’s recovering, but she won’t be in class today or Friday, either.”

Ms. Hamshaw’s expression did not change. “I’m glad to hear she’s all right, but she has a performance coming up. She still needs to attend class.”