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him of Lois Lane. He would take off her reading glasses that she wore for the computer, and loosen her luxuriant long wheat-colored hair, and she looked instantly sexy in spite of herself. Maxine was a beautiful woman, and she and Blake had had three very handsome kids. Blake's hair was as dark as hers was fair, and his eyes the same color blue as hers, and although she was tall, at six feet four he stood a full head taller than she. They had been a striking pair. Daphne and Jack both had Blake's almost jet-black hair and their parents' bright blue eyes, Sam's hair was blond like his mother's, and he had his grandfather's green eyes. He was a beautiful child, and still young enough to be cuddly with his mom.
    Maxine rode up in the elevator, dripping pools of water at her feet. She let herself into the apartment, one of only two apartments on the floor. The other tenants had retired and moved to Florida years before, and were never there, so Maxine and the children didn't have to worry too much about noise, which was a good thing, with three children under one roof, and two of them boys.
    She could hear loud music playing as she took her coat off in the front hall and draped it over the umbrella stand. She took her shoes off there too, her feet were soaked, and she laughed when she saw her reflection in the mirror. She looked like a drowned rat, with pink cheeks from the cold.
    “What did you do? Swim home?” Zelda, their nanny, inquired as she saw her in the hall. She had a stack of clean laundry in her arms. She had been with them since Jack was born and was a godsend for them all. “Why didn't you take a cab?”
    “I needed the air,” Maxine said, smiling at her. Zelda was plump and round faced, wore her hair in a thick braid, and was the same age as Maxine. She had never married, and had been a nanny since she was eighteen. Maxine followed her into the kitchen, where Sam was working on a drawing at the kitchen table, already in clean pajamas after a bath. Zelda quickly handed her employer a cup of tea. It was always comforting coming home to her, and knowing that everything was in control. Like Max, she was obsessively neat, and spent her life cleaning up after the kids, cooking for them, and chauffeuring them everywhere when their mother was at work. Maxine took over on the weekends. Officially, Zelda was off then, and she loved going to the theater whenever she could, but she usually stayed in her room behind the kitchen relaxing and reading. Her full loyalty was to the children and their mother. She had been their nanny for twelve years and was part of the family. She didn't think much of Blake, whom she considered handsome and spoiled, and a lousy father to the kids. She had always felt they deserved better than they got from him, and Maxine couldn't tell her she was wrong. She loved him. Zelda didn't.
    The kitchen was decorated in bleached woods, with beige granite counters and a light hardwood floor. It was a cozy room they all congregated in, and there was a couch and a TV, where Zelda watched her soaps and talk shows. She quoted from them liberally, whenever the opportunity arose.
    “Hi, Mom,” Sam said, hard at work with a purple crayon, looking up as his mother walked in.
    “Hi, sweetheart. How was your day?” She kissed the top of his head and ruffled his hair.
    “Good. Stevie threw up in school,” he said matter-of-factly, switching the purple crayon for green. He was drawing a house, a cowboy, and a rainbow. Maxine didn't read anything into it, he was a normal, happy kid. He missed his father less than the others, since he had never lived with him. His two older siblings were slightly more aware of their loss.
    “That's too bad,” Maxine commented on the unfortunate Stevie. She hoped it was something he ate, not a new flu going around school. “You feel okay?”
    “Yup.” Sam nodded, as Zelda looked into the oven and checked on dinner, and Daphne walked into the room. At thirteen, her body was