I go to the window.
The school minibus is pulling into the lot, white with the district logo on the side. I had forgotten. The annual visit. A day that takes more energy than any other day on the calendar and leaves the staff good-tired.
"We're about to have company," I say, turning to Maya, and I stop.
Maya is looking out the window. The minibus door is sliding open. A line of small children comes out into the parking lot, six years old at most, bright jackets and backpacks, a teacher counting them off at the door with a hand on each small shoulder.
Maya has gone white.
The color has left her face completely, from her cheeks to her mouth, and her eyes are fixed on the children with an odd expression.
I've watched people try to hold themselves together my entire adult life. I know the precise moment when the effort stops being enough.
My hand moves toward her and stops. I don't touch her. I don't speak. I stand close enough that she knows I'm here, close enough that if she needs the anchor she can take it, and I wait.
The children's voices come through the glass, high and bright and completely unaware of what they've just walked into.
Maya doesn't move.
Neither do I.
15
MAYA
The bus door slides open and they pour out.
Small bodies in bright jackets, backpacks bouncing, voices already climbing over each other before their feet hit the ground. A teacher at the door counting heads, one hand out to slow the ones moving too fast.
I used to be her.
The one who knew every name, who spent the week before a field trip making sure everything would be perfect, building it up day by day until the kids were vibrating with it. I was the one with the clipboard who knew which children would need reminding to stay with the group and which ones would surprise you, the quiet ones who turned out to be the most engaged once the real thing was in front of them.
The sound comes through the glass. High and layered, children's voices overlapping, and for a second I'm not here. I'm in a room that smells of paint and the particular warmth of twenty children in a space built for them. I know every face. I know every name.
Then diesel from the idling bus comes under the door and I'm back.
My chest feels like a closed fist.
I reach for the reception counter. My hand finds a pen cap beside the sign-in sheet and I close my fingers around it. The edge bites into my palm. Sharp and small and specific. I press harder and focus on that.
The children are inside now. The room is full of their noise and their movement and I'm standing in the middle of it with a pen cap cutting into my hand and the tears are right there, right at the surface, and I think with what's left of my composure: not here. Not in front of twenty kindergartners who have no idea what they've walked into.
I feel a tug on my jacket.
I look down.
A girl. Red jacket, dark eyes, looking up at me with the gravity of a child who has an important question and will not be kept waiting.
"Is it true, Miss? Do wolves eat people?"
I open my mouth. Nothing comes.
The teacher's voice, the warm and engaged andwhat a great questionvoice. It's gone. There's just me, pen cap in my fist, looking at a child who is waiting.
Then Reid is beside me.
He goes down on one knee, trying and failing, to put all his height at the level of a five year old.
