To avoid forcing Sam to go to school while she looked into homeschooling, Harriet called Mrs. Dawson to tell her he'd gotten sick. That had worked well enough for a couple days, aside from the teacher taking an annoyingly long time to offer her sympathy, but soon she had to send in a forged doctor's note to keep him home.

It wasn't long before Frank was alerted to the issue.

"Wanna tell me why I got a call from Sam's teacher today?" Frank said as he drove them to a parent-teacher conference.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Harriet said. Damn that nosy woman. Didn't she know they were busy?

"It's gonna feel so weird to go in there," Frank said. "I don't think I've set foot inside since Sam's orientation day."

"Still don't know why they bothered with that," Harriet said. He'd been starting kindergarten, not high school. Was it really that important for the parents to know how many pencil sharpeners each teacher had (three), how many times the school had received awards from the state (twice, both over a decade ago), and how many of their hard-earned tax dollars had been spent buying brand new playground equipment that would all end up broken in a month (too many).

"I swear if they ask us to donate to another one of their fundraisers, I am going to scream," Frank said. "What even was that last one, cookie dough? As if we have money to waste on cookies that haven't even been baked yet."

"Next thing you know they'd be selling boxed cake mix with the price sharpied out." Harriet would buy from those miniature salespeople yet again or, more accurately, their much more charismatic parents as long as it meant she didn't have to put much effort into keeping her pantry stocked.

"Whatever it is better be important," Frank said. "The boss was not happy when I told him I had to leave early. It's like he thought I'd caught a bad case of lazy-itis."

Sam had lucked out, Harriet thought as they parked the car and marched into a jungle of pencil-studded ceilings and carpets that had long since lost their original color to spilled snacks and muddy sneakers. He got to stay home and narrow down the next recipe they'd make together while she and his dad had to listen to Mrs. Dawson yap about whatever.

The bespectacled teacher ushered them into a pair of stiff plastic chairs that had been dragged in front of her desk. She clearly had the same taste in décor as her students, Harriet thought from amidst the flurry of sloppy paper snowflakes and misshapen snowmen lining the walls. She was surprised the woman's Christmassy attire was limited to a set of ornament-shaped earrings, although she did spot the white tip of a Santa hat peeking out from inside her desk.

"Thank you for coming," Mrs. Dawson said.

"Mind telling me what was so urgent I had to leave work early?" Frank said as he fidgeted with his tie.

"I wanted to discuss this," Mrs. Dawson said, sliding the forged doctor's note across her desk.

Frank's eyebrows shot up at the sight of the paper. "What's this about?"

"I see you're as curious as I am. I called Dr. Stephenson myself, but he can't recall having seen Sam since summer. " Mrs. Dawson tented her fingers in front of her, her lips tightening into a thin line. "Mrs. Walker, would you please shed some light on why you forged this?"

"Sam hasn't been feeling well."

"He looked fine yesterday," Frank said with a note of alarm.

Harriet shot him a glare. So much for having backup.

"You mean emotionally?" Mrs. Dawson asked. She handed each of them a stack of pamphlets. "As I told you on the phone the other day, there are resources for this sort of thing."

"And as I told you, we are not interested." Harriet's nails dug into her palms as she struggled to keep her hands from slipping into that familiar, comforting whisking motion. "In fact, I've been looking into homeschooling him. Your class has clearly been stressful for him, which is hardly surprising considering you made poor Peter cry with one of your little assignments."

"Hold up, babe," Frank said. "Homeschooling? Why haven't I heard about this?"

Because Harriet hadn't finished gathering all the material she'd need to convince him. It had been slow going, especially since Sam was way too young to bake without her help.

Mrs. Dawson took a deep breath. "I will admit that assignment was careless of me, and I do apologize for upsetting those poor boys so badly. However, I don't think homeschooling him would be a good idea. What he needs is stability, Mrs. Walker, not to be isolated from his friends when he needs their support."

"He doesn't need them," Harriet said, her face growing as hot as the oven. "What we need is to bake."

"We?" Frank looked at her with concern and more than a little frustration.

"It's the only thing that makes us happy."

"Don't I make you happy?" Frank asked, his voice quiet and choked with tears.

Mrs. Dawson cleared her throat, clearly uncomfortable with listening to them discuss such personal matters. "While I'm glad to hear Sam has at least one source of happiness right now, we need to work together to make sure Sam's education isn't neglected. If there is anything I can do to help, I'll do it, but there's only so much I can do if you don't reach out."

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Dawson," Frank said. "Sam will be back in school tomorrow, and we'll take things from there."

"You can't make that decision without me," Harriet said. "You're not even around when he's awake half the time."

"You got him into this mess without me," Frank said, "so I'm taking him out of it without you. You've always said I've gotta put my foot down more. Well, this is me putting my foot down. I love you, Harriet, but I should have stopped this sooner before it got so out of hand."

Just like that, Harriet found herself short one sous chef and one ally she thought she could finally count on.