The teacher’s brows were thin pencil lines. They rose to her hairline. “Ivy’s mother told us this morning that when she tried to speak with you about the note I left in Ivy’s bag, you lost your temper and cut Ivy’s hair off. Is that what happened?”
“I haven’t seen Ivy since Monday morning.” I rose from the slouch against the desk, spinning around, searching for any sign of my kid. “I haven’t touched her hair. What the fuck is even happening?”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t swear, Mr Greene.”
Shit. This was what Lauren wanted. What she’d counted on. That I’d lose my mind and be the monster she’d painted me as.
“Fuck. I’m sorry.” I forced myself back to the desk, my pulse thundering louder than it ever had. “I just don’t understand. I haven’t cut Ivy’s hair. I never would unless she asked me to.”
“That isn’t what her mum said this morning.”
“She’s lying.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I-I don’t know.”
The pause that stretched out was deafening. Ivy’s teacher stared me down for the longest fucking moment. Then she rose from her seat and moved to the door she’d closed. “Bear with me, Mr Greene. I’m going to ask the head teacher to step in with us.”
She disappeared. I waited two full heartbeats before I followed her through the door.
Whitness Primary had a big population. It meant they couldn’t hold whole school assemblies in the main hall, and each year group had its own assigned day.
I felt huge as I followed the sound of tiny children singing a song about parrots and strawberries. Cumbersome and loud, that death rattle of radio static still ringing in my ears.
A corridor.
A set of double doors.
The clank of an ancient piano.
I found the hall, a room I’d only been in once when I’d shown up an hour late to a parents’ evening I hadn’t known was happening. It had windows surrounded by sugar-paper artwork.
Horror pulled me to the first one I saw and I scanned the rows of kids seated on the floor, searching for a blonde plait or a messy bun, like the idiot I was.
The kids stood to sing another song. All but one, at the front of the crowd, lost in her own world, overwhelmed by fucking life.
My gaze fell on her in the same moment hers fell on me, and I couldn’t comprehend how I hadn’t seen her the first time. My baby girl, red-eyed and exhausted, her beautiful long hair butchered into a choppy mess at her chin.
23
FOLK
I rode onto the compound with two things on my mind—Decoy and Ivy, anddinner. Nash was a better wingman for keeping me fed than Alexei, but we’d missed lunch on purpose so we’d be home before nightfall, without stopping to discuss our motivations, though I imagined they were similar.
At the clubhouse, I parked, looking for Decoy and Ivy before I’d even shut the engine off.
You’ve got it bad, bro.
Guilty as charged, but maybe it’d make Rocco happy enough to send me better dreams.
I rolled off my bike and started across the yard, doing another sweep for Decoy. I didn’t see his car, but he sometimes left it around the back on sunny evenings, to leave more room for brothers wanting to get drunk around fire pits.
“Folk!”
I spun around, still walking backwards.
Mateo strode towards me, hair sticking up in every direction, fatigue lining his scarred face.
