Chapter 10: Mom's Turn

My mother sat in the witness chair with her purse in her lap, and she held on to the strap.

"Mrs. Salcedo," the board chair said. "You are the school nurse."

"Yes."

"Where was your daughter's EpiPen on Saturday?"

My mother's eyes went to my father.

He was looking at the table.

"In my office," she said. "In a locked drawer."

"Her medication had been in the nurse's emergency cabinet since seventh grade. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Who moved it?"

The theater was so quiet that I could hear the heater.

"I did," my mother said.

I sat up.

"Whose idea was it?" the board member asked.

"Mine. A week before Parents' Day." She swallowed.

"I was worried how it would look to other families. A nurse who keeps medicine only for the principal's child."

"That wasn't policy."

"It was my decision."

"Was it your husband's decision?"

"No." She said it too quickly. "He had nothing to do with it. I made a mistake."

She didn't look at me.

Behind me my grandmother made a small, low sound in her throat.

I knew it was a lie.

My father had told her to move it.

I knew, because she had whispered the reason in my ear on the lawn.

Your father has the board vote on Monday.

"And on Saturday," the board member said. "When your daughter was visibly in distress, why didn't you go to your office and get it?"

My mother's hands moved on the strap.

"There were forty children," she said. "I had to triage."

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