Chapter 1
“Think of it as a mental health break,” our dean, Kimberly Duplass, told me ten minutes into our private emergency meeting, tugging at the lapels of her white bouclé cardigan as she boosted herself higher in her chair.
“I’m sorry. A mental health break for who?”
“For you, Abby.”
I loosened my grip on the dented folder in my lap.
Inside was the printout of a speech I expected to deliver to an allschool assembly the next morning, reminding students to be kind and observant, to watch out especially for anyone who needed to talk.
Summit High was a community, albeit a new one.
The death of a student was a shock, but we’d get through this.
“I’m confused,” I said to Duplass. “You want me to go home early? We have a lot to do, the sooner the better.”
Glancing at her cell phone, which was vibrating for the third time in several minutes, she said, “A well-executed plan is better than a hasty one.”
I could hear the air quotes around that phrase, like she was repeating a line from an entrepreneur’s how-to book. Summit was like that—businessy, private, highly focused on the bottom line.
“Hold on, let me take this.”
Behind the dean, tall windows framed a sun-dappled lawn backed by giant oak trees.
Students on break from their exams gathered in loose circles.
Girls laughed and brushed back long strands of gleaming hair.
Boys roughhoused and fist-bumped. None of them looked devastated.
But wait until they went home and lost themselves in their phones, where gossip and misinformation would distort their first suppressed pangs of grief.
They hadn’t assimilated the news yet. I hadn’t, either.
Come back, I wanted to say. Never mind an assembly tomorrow.
We needed to round them up and answer their questions now.
Duplass gave short, reassuring replies during her phone call—yes, of course, absolutely. After hanging up, she explained, “Worried parent. A mother who was texted a few minutes ago by her daughter. She wants to know that we’re doing enough.”
“My concern exactly.”
I started to open the folder, but Duplass held up a hand. “Don’t forget, you’re not the only one our students can turn to. You’re part of a team. A growing team.”
A good friend of the dean’s, Dr. Shields—an MD/PhD, Duplass had already said twice, as if I didn’t understand what psychiatrist meant—would be sharing my office beginning tomorrow.
To prepare for his arrival, I’d been asked to empty one drawer and half of a small bookcase.
I still didn’t understand how we’d collaborate or why he needed shelf space for only four more days of school, unless it was to display honors or publications to impress visiting parents.
“Is he a grief expert?” I asked. “Does he work with teens?”
“He’s a friend of the board.”
That’s what mattered. Not just his pedigree, which outshone my recent master’s degree in counseling.
“Graduation is days away,” I reminded her, as if she needed reminding. “There isn’t enough time for him to establish trust. A lot of kids won’t talk to him.”
I paused, on the edge of an uncomfortable insight.
A lot of kids won’t talk to him. Is that what Duplass and the board actually wanted?
To prevent a long line to the counseling office from forming, so she could assure parents that every needy student was being seen and there was nothing more to be done?
“You’re being defensive,” she said. “That’s not helpful. Take the afternoon. Go home. I imagine you need some time to think about your role in this.”
I folded my hands across my lap to stop them from trembling. “I didn’t have any suspicions that Sidney Mayfield was considering harming herself.”
“As you’ve made clear.”
“No. I think you’re misunderstanding me. I’m not saying I missed the signs. I’m saying there were no signs.”
“Every kid has problems.”
“Small ones. Nothing she couldn’t handle.”
“But she had weekly sessions with you.”
“Which is why I can say it with confidence.” I kept remembering the way Sidney looked when she dropped into the comfy blue chair in my office corner, looking relaxed and content, like she’d only come to show me her latest high-cadence Spotify playlist so that I’d have better music for my biweekly runs.
“No apparent depression or anxiety. No agitation. No long-term preconditions. No self-injuring behaviors, not even . . . not even—”
“Abby.”
“Not even promiscuity. No sign that she wanted attention.”
“Wasn’t meeting with you regularly exactly that—a sign of wanting attention?”
Grace, the dean’s secretary, rapped on the door once, opening it a crack to whisper, “He’s here.”
I smoothed my skirt, expecting either Dr. Shields or the detective who’d already talked with us this morning, returning with another round of questions.
Duplass mouthed the word fuck. In my year at Summit, I’d never even heard her say darn.
She closed her eyes and briefly steepled her hands in front of her lips. “Another reason I wanted to let you slip out and go home. Jack Mayfield is here, an hour early.”
“But that’s fine.”
She leveled her gaze at me. “It’s not fine.” To the secretary she said, “Tell him—”
There was a small commotion at the door, Mayfield’s hand on Grace’s shoulder, which made her turn in surprise, stammering apologetically.
Which is what we women do. Apologize for the touch of large, pushy men.
We aren’t supposed to let them know they’ve done anything inappropriate.
We’re supposed to make them comfortable.
In seconds, Mayfield was through the door, leaving Grace standing behind him, eyes wide, mouthing the word sorry.
“No, no,” Duplass said, rising and stepping to the side of her desk with a warm smile pasted on her face.
“Please, Mr. Mayfield, we’re so glad to see you.
The timing is perfect.” She gestured to the empty chair next to mine.
“I brought in Abby, our counselor, so we could all talk about this together.”
“Of course I know Abby.”
I stood and extended a hand, but Mayfield didn’t take it, only looked me up and down, making me suddenly aware of the damp circles beneath the arms of my secondhand blouse.
He, in comparison, looked fresh and well-dressed.
Tucked-in polo shirt, belted khaki pants.
Dark brown hair, damp and gelled. He even smelled good.
But we all deal differently with shock and grief.
Some people wilt and withdraw. Others don armor.
Jack Mayfield pulled out his phone, pointing to the screen. “This is all you’ve got?”
“I’m sorry,” Duplass said, patting her chest for missing reading glasses. “You’re showing us what?”
“Some stupid checklists.”
He shook the phone in her face, then mine, too fast for us to see, but I didn’t need to.
“The digital counseling forms,” I explained, waiting for Mayfield to sit, then lowering myself slowly to my own chair, positioned uncomfortably close to his. “Those are the ones we sent to Detective Hernández, after he talked with us this morning.”
They were terrible forms—Duplass hadn’t let me change them—with room for little more than a “presenting problem” and one or two “action(s) taken.”
Topic: Friends/family
Action: Explore feelings. Develop trust.
“His partner sent me copies,” Mayfield said. “You might have done me the courtesy.”
“We planned to,” Duplass said. “But it didn’t seem right to send emails until we’d talked to you first. We’re so deeply sorry. We can’t even imagine how you’re—”
“I want the rest of it,” Mayfield said, turning to me, his face so close I could see one bright red shaving nick, the size of a staple, on his neck. “Don’t you scribble things down, beyond the checklist stuff? I want to know what you and my daughter were talking about week after week.”
Duplass threw me a cautioning glance. Did she think he’d sue? But Mayfield loved Summit. Maybe he could sue me alone, and not the school.
“Most of our conversations were about career interests and general well-being, not acute mental health concerns.” I hesitated. “But I can get those notes to you.”
Mayfield slumped for a moment in his chair, like he’d been itching for a fight and was disappointed I’d given in so quickly. “Good. Email me everything. I should get to see it first, don’t you think?” His ire was rising again. “Didn’t that occur to the two of you? Show the family first?”
Another glance from Duplass. It’s what I’d proposed to her this morning. Family first, and promptly. But she’d had her own ideas.
“Did Sidney talk about her mother?” Mayfield asked.
“She was sympathetic to her mother’s history of neck pain, but she was a little concerned Geneva was overusing prescription drugs.”
What can I say? My mom’s self-medicating. We all do, one way or another.
Sidney had made that comment while pointing to my desk drawer.
In one of our first sessions, Sidney had complained of cramps and cravings.
I’d told her about my dark chocolate supply.
She’d asked if we could open a bar to share.
I relented, warning her that if she told every other girl in school, I’d never hear the end of it.
Our secret, she’d said. As long as you keep the good stuff coming. Orange peel or almond, next time, please?
In that moment, I’d caught a glimpse of the daughter I’d never have.
Mayfield was still staring at me. “You’ll confirm Sidney was upset about Geneva’s pill problem, if the detectives ask?”
The impression I got from Detective Hernández was that they already knew, but I nodded. As Mayfield himself said, there was no doubt where the pills came from. The question was why. I had no answer for that.
“Did Sidney say anything to you about me?” he asked.