Chapter One
Alex
"Mrs. Riggs?"
I look up from the sign-in sheet at the front office. Mrs. Farrell is standing in the doorway of her classroom with that expression that teachers reserve for parents they've already decided are part of the problem. She's Evie's homeroom teacher, and we've spoken twice since September — once about Evie's reading level, which is three grades ahead, and once about Evie's habit of sitting with her back to the wall at lunch, which Mrs. Farrell found concerning, and I found completely reasonable given everything she’s been through.
"She's having some trouble adjusting still," Mrs. Farrell says. "With the other children. She doesn't respond when they try to include her, she keeps to herself during group activities, and today—" She pauses. "Well, today a girl named Sophie approached her at recess to invite her to join a game, and Evie hit her."
"I highly doubt Evie hit her unprovoked, Mrs. Farrell. What did Sophie say to her before she hit her?"
Mrs. Farrell blinks at me. "She was trying to include?—"
"What did she say to her exactly?" I keep my voice even. I've gotten very good at keeping my voice even. "Before Evie hit her."
Something shifts in her expression, and she swallows uncomfortably before continuing. "Children don't always communicate these things clearly?—"
"I am quite aware of that, but that still doesn’t answer my question." I interrupt, done playing this particular game. "Is Principal Garland ready for me?"
The principal’s office has that sort of uncomfortable lighting that exists purely to make you feel small — degrees framed at eye level, desk positioned so the light hits him and not you, chairs that are just slightly too low. I've sat across from him twice already this year. I know the chair situation intimately.
"Evangeline struck another student during recess," he says in the same cold fashion as Mrs. Farrell had, folding his hands on the desk like he's a judge about to deliver a verdict. "The girl required ice for a swollen lip."
"What did she say to Evie?" I ask again.
"The situation escalated from verbal?—"
“Yeah, I got that, what no one seems able to tell me though is what did Sophie say to her?" I asked more adamantly.
Garland pauses, clearly caught off guard by my bluntness. He's not used to being interrupted, and I'm not sorry about it. "That's not the?—"
"It's relevant," I insist, "to understanding the situation."
He gives me the look that men like him give women like me, the one I’m all too familiar with by now, the one that saysyou're making this harder than it needs to be. I give him nothing back. I've been giving men like him nothing for years.
"Evangeline is welcome to discuss the details with you at home over the next few days. And I would encourage her to do the same with the school counselor when she returns on Thursday," he says coldly. "But right now, we need to address the physical altercation."
Behind him, through the glass, I can see Evie in a chair in the hallway. Her dark hair half out of her braid, shoulders pulled in, staring at a scuff on the floor like she's trying to disappear into it. She's twelve years old, and she carries herself like someone already used to bad things.
“I'll speak with her," I say, a slight edge of irritation seeping through my voice. "So she is suspended until Thursday then?"
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
The walk home takes longer than usual because Evie doesn't want to talk, and I don't push her. We do our best thinking in parallel, the two of us — side by side, not looking at each other, letting the silence do the work for us. She's got her hands jammed in her jacket pockets, and her chin tucked down. Every few blocks, she kicks a pebble ahead of her, watches it skitter, then kicks it again.
By the time we reach our apartment building, she's almost ready to come clean, I can tell by the way her shoulders drop — just slightly, just enough to reflect the change.
"You can yell at me," she says, pulling the door open.
"I'm not going to yell at you." I tell her as I walk through it.
She follows close on my heels. "You're thinking about it."
"Actually, I'm thinking about dinner." We walk through the lobby side by side, past the bulletin board with Mr. Roberts's hand-lettered notices about package theft and proper hallway etiquette. "What do you want? I can do pasta or I can do pasta."
"That's not much of a choice."
"Sure it is, do you want penne or rigatoni?” I hit the elevator button and look down at her, noticing the way her coat is still shedding small drops of water. She's still not looking at me, but the corner of her mouth is curved into a small smile. I'll take it. "So are you ready to tell me what happened at school today ?"
