Chapter 16: The Hearing

On Sunday Alessia asked me to wait.

"After the hearing," she said, over a bowl of cereal. "I want to walk in there with one problem at a time."

"Then I'll tell you after."

"Good. And he's driving us, right? Dario?"

"He's driving us."

"Okay," she said, and she smiled into her spoon.

On Monday morning Dario's sedan stopped in front of St. Brendan's at twenty to eight.

He stayed by the car with his hands in his pockets.

Alessia got out in her uniform skirt and her brace, with her coat over one arm, and she crossed the gravel to him.

"You're the cereal man," she said.

"I am."

"Hold this."

She put the coat in his hands.

He took it in both of them, stood very straight, and said nothing at all.

"Don't let it touch the ground," Alessia said.

"I won't."

She walked up the steps without looking back.

I saw his face then, and I had to look away.

The hearing was held in the trustees' room, a long space with a green carpet and a portrait of the school's founder.

Five trustees sat on one side of the table, and the principal and the school's lawyer sat at the end.

Sasha sat across from them in a white cardigan, with her hair in a ribbon.

My second son and my third son sat on either side of her.

They had signed the guardian line on her complaint, because she had nobody else.

"Ms. Wetherby alleges that Miss Cardwell assaulted her in the east bathroom on Thursday," the principal said. "Ms. Wetherby?"

"I'm so sorry," Sasha said, in her small voice. "I didn't want anyone in trouble."

She pushed up her sleeve.

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