Noah smiled. "I'm an academic who likes to get his hands dirty. I teach botany and related subjects at UW. Or at least I do now--I'm not sure what the next few years will bring. The year of students behind Alex is effectively the last who will be entering college for eighteen years or so, not counting any adults who might choose to return. No students mean out-of-work professors. We'll see what happens."
He crawled under a different bush to get at weeds, then re-emerged.
"So you're a single mother? You have my respect. It must have been very difficult, raising a child alone. I was never fortunate enough to have one." He remembered bending over and kissing the top of Julia's head as she drew pictures of fat happy babies on lists of names, remembered how happy she'd been at the thought of their own. He blinked, then continued with his weeding.
"Well, I can recommend UW, but then I might be a bit biased. Seattle University is also a very good school--more of a technical bent than UW. My first wife was a professor of mathematics there, and she loved it."