I read the page.
There was a blank space for signature at the bottom.
There was also a line that would make it easy to imply the family initiated everything.
They had not.
I took the pen.
Then I set it back down.
“I’m not writing anything that sounds like this was their fault.”
Mr. Vale blinked.
“No one is assigning fault.”
I slid the paper back across the desk.
“Then write it that way first.”
Ms. Keene exhaled slowly.
“Please wait outside for a minute, Mr. Carter.”
I did.
The secretary looked up at me, then back down fast.
People in school offices hear more truth through closed doors than most preachers do in a month.
When Ms. Keene came out, she held no folder.
Just a paper cup of water.
She handed it to me.
That was the first kind thing anybody had done in that office all week.
“I need you to be careful,” she said.
“With what?”
“With turning this into a fight you can’t win.”
I took the cup.
“I’m not trying to win.”
She gave a sad little smile.
“That’s what worries me.”
That afternoon Mason was supposed to go to art.
Instead he sat in my room for twenty-two minutes because no one was available to escort him down the other hall.
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