Chapter 6: The Café

I answered her text with one line: Tuesday, four o'clock, our café.

She wrote back: Fine.

The café sat across from the elementary school where Hannah taught, and for three years we had met there every Saturday morning.

I got there early and ordered a flat white for myself and a chai for her.

She came in at ten past four with a stack of construction paper under her arm and sat down without taking off her coat.

"I can't be long," she said. "I have bulletin boards."

"I know."

"Dad's upset. Cedric's upset. Cynthia cried in the car on the way home on Friday."

"Did she?" I said.

"Mom."

"I'm only asking whether you know why she was crying."

Hannah wrapped both hands around the cup I'd bought her.

"You humiliated her," she said. "In front of Cedric's parents. You took her place card and moved it to the far end of the table."

"She put mine by the kitchen door."

"That's different."

"Tell me how."

She opened her mouth and shut it again.

I took my phone out and slid it across the table.

"Read that," I said.

It was the photo of Cynthia's messages from Russell's phone.

Does she know yet?

I'm not waiting past tomorrow. Tell her or I will.

Hannah read them slowly.

I watched her face.

I had expected shock.

What I saw was worry, and under it, something close to relief.

"That's about you," she said.

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