Right there where it says mother it had Dana’s full name. Not stepmother. Just mother. The phone number matched the one on the emergency card. Underneath it said updated by father on the date line. Mark’s writing again.

I flipped through the rest. The permission slips I had signed last fall were still in there but there were new ones with Dana’s name at the bottom. One for a field trip to the zoo that happened last month. I did not even know about that trip.

I closed the folder and pushed it away from me. My hands felt cold. I could hear kids running in the hallway outside. Parents laughing. All of it sounded far away.

I drove home after that. The house was quiet because the kids were with Mark for the weekend. I put my keys on the hook by the door and just stood in the kitchen for a while. The lunch boxes were still on the counter from that morning. Lily’s had a little note I wrote her about doing her best on the spelling test. It was still folded up inside.

The next morning I called Mark. He answered on the second ring like nothing was wrong.

I asked him straight out why Dana’s name was on the school forms instead of mine. He got quiet for a second. Then he said Dana had been helping a lot lately and it just made sense to have her down as a contact. I told him a contact was one thing but listing her as their mother was something else. He said I was making too much of it. Said the kids liked having her around and the school needed someone they could reach during the day.

I asked him if he had told the kids to call her mom. He said no. Then he said maybe it would not be the worst thing if they did someday. That was when I hung up.

I have not called him back since. The folder is still sitting on my kitchen table. I keep meaning to put it away but I have not touched it. Lily and Ben come home tomorrow. I will make their lunches and sign whatever needs signing like I always do. But I keep wondering what Mark is going to put on the next set of forms when the new school year starts.

I raised these kids. I am the one they run to when they skin their knees. But somewhere along the way Mark decided Dana gets to be the one on the paper. I do not know what I am supposed to do with that.