The overhead light buzzed faintly.
A truck rumbled past out on the county road.
“I’m sorry,” Emma said.
“For what?”
“For asking you to do it.”
That turned me so fast my chair scraped.
“No.”
I pointed a finger at her.
“No, ma’am. Don’t you put this on yourself.”
She stared at the cereal box.
“I just thought…”
“I know what you thought.”
I softened my voice.
“You thought maybe one room full of people could remember that human worth is not a dress code.”
She looked up.
I let out a breath.
“And maybe they did. Some of them.”
She slid into the chair across from me.
The same chair where she used to do homework while I reheated canned soup and tried not to calculate miles in my head.
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