Chapter 7 #2
“Very.” Michaela nods. “Or she could be in traffic. Grandma hates talking when there’s traffic. She says it gives her an angry head.”
“That’s fair.”
“Otherwise, she could be in one of those stores where they sell lotion and everything smells too much.”
“That is certainly possible.”
She nods as if I’ve confirmed a serious hypothesis, then goes back to her drawing. I try David’s phone again. Voicemail. Caleb’s. Voicemail. David’s mother one more time. Nothing.
I hate this. Not because it’s chaos—I can handle chaos. It’s the not knowing that gets under my skin. The suspended, helpless feeling of being responsible for a child while every approved adult in her orbit has apparently fallen into a telecommunications sinkhole.
I fold my hands on top of my desk before I can start drumming my fingers. “All right. New plan. We’re going to give the adults a little more time to call us back.”
Michaela sighs with the world-weary gravity of a retired judge. “That sounds boring.”
“It is a little boring,” I admit.
She sets down her pencil. On the page, Archie does in fact have one ear at truth-seeking attention and one ear in a state of existential collapse. It’s unreasonably accurate.
“Can we go to your house?” she asks. “Archimedes helps with boredom. Also trauma.”
I blink. “Also trauma?”
“Yes. He’s very therapeutic.”
“He is,” I say carefully. “But I can’t take you to my house without your dad’s permission.”
Her brow furrows. “You did before.”
“Yes, because your dad and I spoke first. He knew where you were going.”
She leans back in the chair, small and serious and far too perceptive for her age. “But you know me. And I know you. And Archimedes knows me. So it’s basically pre-approved.”
Despite myself, my mouth twitches. “That is not how legal authorization works.”
“It should be.”
“It absolutely should not.”
“If I were in charge, it would.”
“I have no doubt.”
She swings one foot lightly over the edge of the chair. “What if I write a note?”
“A note from whom?”
“Me.”
“To authorize your own transportation?”
“Yes.” She brightens. “I have excellent penmanship.”
“You do,” I say. “But unfortunately the state of Illinois remains unconvinced that third graders should notarize their own release forms.”
She narrows her eyes at me, deeply offended on behalf of her credentials. “That feels ageist.”
“It is, and in this case I’m comfortable with that.” I soften my voice. “Michaela, I mean it. I cannot take you anywhere that isn’t school or home without your dad saying yes. Not because I don’t want to. Because I could get in serious trouble.”
“How serious?”
I hesitate, because eight-and-a-half-year-olds deserve honesty in measured doses. “Serious enough that I could lose my job.”
Her whole face changes. The boredom drains out, replaced by instant alarm. “Because of me?”
“No.” I’m out of my chair before I consciously decide to move. I crouch beside her, keeping my tone steady. “Never because of you. Because grown-up rules can be badly designed and very inflexible. You have done absolutely nothing wrong.”
She studies me, searching for cracks the way children do when they want to know whether the reassurance is real.
“I don’t want you to lose your job,” she says finally. “You’re good at it.”
The simplicity of that nearly takes me out at the knees. And somewhere in the back of my mind, a quiet voice I’ve been ignoring for weeks says: be careful. This one will hurt worse than the others.
“Thank you, honey.” I tap the paper on her lap. “So for now, you and your highly therapeutic dog portrait are stuck with me.”
She looks unconvinced. “This office is less therapeutic than Archimedes in person.”
“That’s true. My office scores poorly on emotional support metrics.”
She gives me a look that says she knows I’m trying.
Twenty minutes later, my office has been converted into a one-child waiting room with diminishing returns.
Michaela has finished the Archie portrait, started a second drawing of what appears to be Archie as a judge, and asked me seventeen questions in rapid succession—whether adults can be arrested for not answering their phones, whether school policy allows hallway relay races after dismissal, and whether granola bars count as dinner if eaten with conviction.
I answer, redirect, offer animal crackers from my emergency drawer, and keep calling.
Voicemail. Voicemail. Voicemail.
I fold my hands on top of my desk before I can start drumming my fingers.
There’s a version of this that’s funny—the principal who slept with the parent, now babysitting his kid while he’s unreachable, like a sitcom plot written by someone who hates me.
But underneath the comedy is something I don’t want to look at too closely.
The fact that I am, once again, the person holding someone else’s world together while mine sits in the corner waiting its turn.
At the forty-minute mark, I try Janet. She’s at a district facilities meeting across town and immediately offers to leave.
“No,” I tell her, glancing at Michaela, now using colored pencils to give Judge Archie a ceremonial sash. “Stay where you are. I’ve got her.”
“You sound like you’re grinding your molars.”
“I might be.”
“Do you want me to call Anthea and ask whether the board would prefer we chain a child to the reception desk until her family emerges from whatever Bermuda Triangle they’ve entered?”
Despite myself, I laugh. “Tempting. But no.”
“Keep me posted.”
“I will.”
I hang up and stare at my phone. I’ve now left messages with every approved adult in Michaela’s life and received exactly zero callbacks. My professional options are narrowing to ones I don’t like.
Michaela is watching me over the top of her drawing. “Still no one?”
“Still working on it.”
She makes a face like voicemail is a personal moral failing—which, under the circumstances, I’m inclined to agree with.
I unlock my phone and open our text thread.
It’s mortifying that there is a text thread at all. And that I notice, in a hot little flicker under my ribs, that the last message in it is my address—the text I sent him the day he first kissed me. My body doesn’t need any more material. My body has plenty of material.
I type before I can overthink it.
Me:
Marta called with a family emergency. I haven’t been able to reach you, Caleb, or your mother for an approved pickup contact. I’m taking Michaela to my house so I can feed her and she can wait in comfort. Please contact me as soon as you get this.
I read it once, hate that my heart is pounding, and hit send before the rule-following part of my brain can stage a coup.
Message delivered.
No response. Obviously. Because why would the universe suddenly become cooperative now?
I lift my head. “All right.”
Michaela straightens. “All right what?”
“All right, I’m making an executive decision.”
Her eyes widen. “I love those.”
“I know you do.” I stand and reach for my blazer draped over the back of my chair. “We’re going to my place.”
Which is against protocol—but protocol says I call the police at this point.
And in an active custody situation, that’s the last thing Michaela needs.
I’ll never forget the way David broke down when he spoke about his ex-wife.
And after looking into her myself—AKA stalking her social media like a creeper—I’m inclined to agree that this woman isn’t doing this for the right reasons.
Michaela slides off the chair so fast she nearly leaves her backpack behind.
“Do I need to pretend to be undercover?” she asks, already shoving colored pencils into her front pocket.
“No.”
“Can I, though?”
I help her get her bag on her back. “Only emotionally.”
She nods solemnly. “That’s how I do most things.”
God help me, I love this child.