The Timer Game. Susan Smith Arnout

got out a pencil and tablet, her mind blank. Months ago, she’d taken a game from her own childhood and tweaked it, using it to make Katie’s transition into the school week easier. It had morphed into Katie’s favorite, the game they always played on Mondays to get dressed.

      The Timer Game involved everything Katie loved: clues, a race against time, and at the end, if she beat the timer, a small treat to kick-start the day. It was helping Katie identify words and begin to grasp the passage of time, but now, October, all the easy combinations of rhymes and hiding places had been exhausted. Grace kept the old clues in a kitchen drawer. She riffled through them. It reminded her of sorting recipes, wondering if it was too soon again to try the meatloaf.

      She found some clues she could modify and worked silently, concentrating. Jeanne appeared in the doorway arch, hair springy, a pink kimono cinched around her waist. She was in her midfifties and looked older. Alcohol and too much time in the sun had thickened her skin into a deep web of lines. She had dyed her hair a defiant shade of red that both moved and amused Grace. This was a woman who would not go quietly. Soberly and with a bad knee, but not quietly.

      ‘Coffee.’ Jeanne eased into a chair. Helix woofed a greeting and Jeanne absently scratched his head as he settled himself at her feet.

      ‘Bad night?’ Grace poured a cup and gave it to her.

      ‘When are you going to tell her?’ Jeanne stared at the clues. ‘Oh, God, Monday.’

      ‘Yeah, I have to hide all this stuff before she wakes up.’ Grace scooped up Katie’s clothes and bent to pick up Spot Goes to the Farm, splayed open on the kitchen floor. She folded Katie’s T-shirt into the book, putting them under the kitchen sink along with the correct clue.

      ‘Mommy?’ The voice was coming from the stairwell upstairs.

      ‘I’m coming,’ Grace called. ‘I’ll be right there.’

      ‘You don’t want her finding out at school.’ Jeanne stared at Grace across the cup rim.

      ‘I’ll tell her, okay?’ Grace said irritably. ‘But not right now.’ She ran into the living room and hid Katie’s underpants along with a clue. From upstairs came the sound of a toilet flushing.

      ‘I’m using your shower.’ Jeanne was making her way to the stairs, leaning on her cane.

      ‘Go for it.’

      ‘Mommy?’ Katie’s voice was imperious, the queen summoning her court.

      ‘Coming!’ Grace shouted as she trotted into the kitchen and grabbed the timer. She stuffed Katie’s shorts and a clue into the family room bookshelf behind a tub of clay, dropped Katie’s Air Walkers next to the cage holding Jeanne’s gerbils, and scanned the room, trying to find some small treat. She settled on a pack of balloons she’d bought for the party and slid one into the final note, putting it under a shoe and covering everything with the cage blanket.

      ‘Mommy!’ Katie bellowed from upstairs. Helix perked up, ears lopsided, and trotted off to join her. Grace took a slow breath and climbed the stairs.

      Katie waited in bed, eyes closed, pouting, Helix next to her on the quilt. ‘If you played this game, you’d lose.’

      Grace stood the first clue on the top bookshelf next to the Peace Beanie Baby. ‘Well, guess what? Keep your eyes closed, honey; Helix, down.’ She pulled him off the bed and he grunted and flopped on the floor. ‘I played this game with my dad and your Uncle Andy when I was a kid and I was really good at it.’

      She slid the scalloped socks she was holding under the bed ruffle along with the last clue and stood at the side of the bed, her hand on the timer.

      ‘Okay, at the count of three, I start the timer and you open your eyes. One … two …’

      Katie’s eyes popped open. She scanned the room and spotted the note. ‘Three!’ She scrambled out of bed and flew to the bookshelf.

      ‘Three,’ Grace finished, giving the timer a brisk turn. Sixty seconds. Katie snatched up the first clue and opened it.

      ‘Today … is,’ Katie sang out.

      ‘You can read that?’ Grace settled onto the floor.

      ‘Mommy, that’s how all the clues start, so now I know those words.’ She stabbed her finger at the next word. ‘Mah … mah … Mommy?’

      ‘Today is Mommy? That’s silly.’

      Katie grinned and threw her arms around Grace. ‘Today is Mommy, silly dilly Mommy.’ She beamed, her goodness radiating, at making this small joke.

      From down the hall came the sound of a shower starting.

      ‘Who’s here?’

      ‘Jeanne. Remember? You have Show and Tell today with the gerbils.’

      ‘I just want to be with you.’ Katie crawled into her lap. ‘I need you to read these today. You pretend I’m little and I can’t read anything yet. Read the whole thing.’ She smiled sunnily.

      ‘Okay. Look at the words while I point.’

      Katie repositioned herself and Grace smelled the ripe sleep smell of her young skin. Grace pointed and read aloud:

      ‘Today is MondayHere we goYour socks are close bySomeplace low.’

      ‘Someplace low, someplace low,’ Katie muttered, rolling to her knees and scanning the carpet. Grace saw a wink of hot pink under the bed ruffle. Katie scrambled to it. ‘Aha!’

      The timer dinged. ‘You beat it. You beat the timer. I didn’t hide those very well, did I?’

      ‘Nope,’ Katie said cheerfully. She pulled on both socks and trotted back to Grace with the second clue. Grace reset the timer and read:

      ‘Far from hereIs underwearNear a windowDown the stair.’

      ‘Down the stair!’ Katie urged. ‘Come on!’

      ‘No running on the stairs!’

      Katie shot ahead, running. Helix joined her, his leg banging on each step. The staircase opened into the living room and by the time Grace had made her way down, Katie was yanking on a pair of flowered underpants under her nightie, Helix prancing and yipping in tight circles around her.

      ‘Come on, hurry!’ Katie thrust a clue at Grace, and Grace reset the timer and read aloud:

      ‘Your T-shirt’s pinkAnd if you lookUnder a sinkIt’s in a book.’

      ‘This is too easy today,’ Katie protested, heading for the kitchen.

      ‘Maybe you’re just too good.’

      Katie bent and opened the door under the kitchen sink and pulled out the Spot book and the T-shirt. She squirmed out of her nightie and pulled the T-shirt over her head. ‘Read,’ she commanded, her voice muffled.

      Grace reset the timer and read the next clue as Katie’s face breathlessly emerged.

      ‘So take the bookPut it awayThen take a lookBehind the clay.’

      ‘I didn’t leave this book out.’

      ‘Helix likes to read at night when we go to bed.’

      ‘You’re funny.’ Katie carried the book through the archway into the family room, glancing at the rumpled foldout bed and covered cage. She stood for a moment staring at the shelves jammed with games, books, abandoned dolls. She found the clay bin and moved it aside, snatching up the shorts and a clue.

      ‘Put the book away!’ Grace reminded, as Katie pulled on her blue shorts. A thumping sound like a heavier Helix signaled the approach of Jeanne, making her way slowly with her cane down the stairs into the kitchen. Katie shoved the book onto the shelf as Grace reset the timer and read:

      ‘You’re almost done.To find your shoesLook by