Nathan and Elena

Will and Veronica dated in high school and for a while in college.  I still have the pictures of us all at their high school graduation in 1997.

Thirteen years later, when they found each other again, she was single again and so was Will.  When we met Nathan, her then-three-year-old son, we all fell in love with him, too.

When Will, Elena and I picked up Nathan from first grade yesterday, he told us proudly that he'd had a "green day."  A Green Day is a day when you get no bad marks for behavior, when you don't "mess around,"  and when you don't talk to your neighbors.  "And," he said, "I have about a hundred best friends."

It's hard to get a Green Day when you have a hundred best friends.

Nathan introduced me to the bus monitor: "This is Elena's best friend," he said. "And she's my….my step….my daddy's…I mean, my stepfather's…my Will's…mother."

When we got home, we played Run From the Monster.  The Monster--according to Nathan--has five heads, an eye in each head, and snakes for hair.  Elena was the farmer, Nathan was the helicopter pilot, and I was the rescue person.  (Nathan was in charge of casting.)

I didn't rescue anybody.  But if I ever run into the particular monster, I'll be heroic, I'm sure, and rescue the helicopter pilot and the farmer.