Chapter 50 #2
“They can fire me for violating school policy—which I have. Anthea will have the logs in front of her by two o’clock.
I handed them to her myself when I updated the file, so she knows I self-reported, and she’ll still bring it up as if I tried to hide it, because that’s how board reviews work.
You show your paperwork, and then someone uses it against you. ”
“You were helping both me and Michaela.”
“They don’t care about nuance, David. They care about the appearance of impropriety.
” She takes a seat, and the chair absorbs her like she’s made of less than she was yesterday.
“We knew this could happen.” Her voice is glassy, hollow.
“That’s why we had all those rules in the beginning.
Why we were careful. Why we shouldn’t be—” She snaps her mouth shut, shakes her head.
Why we shouldn’t be together. She doesn’t have to say it. It sits there on the table, ugly and true, and for a long, terrifying second I don’t know if I have the right words to unclench it from her heart.
She looks up at me, and there’s a wild, reckless hope in her eyes that’s murdered by the next blink. “I can’t be the reason Michaela loses everything, David. I can’t. My job, my—us—it can’t be more important than her.” Her voice is so soft I barely hear her. “It can’t be more important than her.”
I recognize the move because I’ve spent my whole adult life running a version of it—the part that volunteers to be the thing cut so everything else can survive.
She thinks she’s being honorable. I know she’s reading from the only script her particular disaster ever handed her.
I’ve never loved her more than I do right now, sitting across from her while she tries to set herself on fire to warm the rest of us. I’m also not going to let her do it.
“Do you want to break up with me?” I ask. I keep my voice calm, neutral.
Legal.
She shakes her head, once, violently. “No. But I will if I have to. That woman. She can’t win. She can’t.”
My hands are flat on the table. Her hands are in her lap. I want to reach for her, but I don’t. Not until I know which way this is going to break.
“Nora. Look at me.”
She does, and when her eyes meet mine, I see the edge she’s holding herself on—every muscle in her face working to keep it together.
It’s the same look I’ve worn a hundred times: standing in courtrooms, doctor’s offices, mediation sessions, every moment I chose to eat my own feelings so my daughter wouldn’t have to taste a morsel.
If I push her right now, she’ll go nuclear on herself to spare me. So I try something else.
“Did you ever think,” I say, soft, “that what makes you the best mother for Michaela is the fact that you are the kind of person who would sacrifice your own heart if that’s what was needed?”
She blinks. Hard. I see her throat work.
“That’s what I love about you,” I say. “You don’t know how to put yourself first. But I do. Which is why you’re not going anywhere.”
She shakes her head again, barely. “David, this isn’t about—”
“It is. Look—” I force my hands off the table, force myself not to cross the space and erase the inches between us.
“You and I both know what the board is looking for: evidence of impropriety, the best possible optics for themselves, nothing more. They’re not doing what’s best for the student.
They’re doing what’s safest for the adults.
There’s a difference, and I’m not going to let them turn you into a case study because Kelsie found another angle. ”
Nora stares, jaw clenched, the glimmer of unshed tears in her eyes turning my insides raw.
I pull my chair closer, careful and slow, so I don’t startle her. “You are not a risk to Michaela. You’re the one thing she trusts most in this world.” I pause, softer. “And if the board had any sense, they’d see it.”
“But they don’t, David. They don’t see.” Her voice breaks on the last word, and she looks away, out the window again, like she might jump from this whole situation if the view were a little wider.
“I had to fill out so many forms this morning just to cross the parking lot. They made me sign in at the front desk like a stranger.” She squeezes her hands, knuckles fading to white.
“It felt like being in high school again, right after my mother died. Walking into school knowing everyone’s already been told the worst thing about you before you even make it to homeroom. ”
“Jesus.” I can’t help it anymore. I reach across the table and cover her hand with mine. The moment we touch, she flinches, then lets out a sound that’s half laugh, half broken sob.
“It happens that fast,” she continues. “One minute you’re in the system, the next you’re a liability. If they want to cut me loose, they’ll do it.” She shrugs. “I just want it over with if it’s going to happen.”
I sit there, aching for her, trying to figure out what the next step is—not just for her, but for us. For Michaela. My brain is already running the calculus of damages and next moves, the litigation mind snapping into place to offer solutions when what she really wants is to not be solved.
“We’ll fight it,” I say. “We’ll get Kelsie to back off.”
“How?”
My father is going to kill me for doing this.
“The security footage,” I say, scrubbing a hand over my face. “We need to show it to Thomas.”