The Uber ride costs fourteen dollars. I press my forehead to the cold car window and try to breathe.
He knows. Jamieknowswhat's at stake. We've talked about it—about keeping his head down, swallowing it, walking away. And he threw a punch anyway.
A fight means another red flag to a caseworker evaluating a fourteen-year-old with "behavioral issues" and a nineteen-year-old guardian. The caseworker will draw the obvious conclusion—I can't handle them.
But I've handled them for three years. Through our father’s conviction, our mother’s funeral, eviction notices, and the nights Jamie punched holes in the drywall and cried after because he didn't know where the anger came from.
But DCFS doesn't grade on a curve.
The school smells like every school—floor wax and cafeteria grease and institutional despair. Jamie's sitting on the bench outside the main office staring at the floor like he's trying to burn a hole through it.
He looks up when I enter.
"Maeve—" he starts.
"Not now." It comes out harsher than I mean for it to, and I watch him shut down, watch the wall slam up behind his eyes, and I hate myself, but I don't have time to fix it because the door to the principal’s office opens and Mrs. Galdek, an austere woman in a pantsuit, says my name like she’s passing a prison sentence.
"Ms. Shaughnessy. Come in, we’ve been waiting. Jamie, you remain out here."
The principal's office is small and beige and already full of people.
Principal Galdek takes a seat behind her desk, lips pressed into a tight line. Her hands rest on a manila folder. Jamie's folder. It’s an inch thick.
Beside her, arranged like a jury, sit three people I've never met. The man, dressed in a golf-club polo, looks like a lawyer. The woman has a perfectly coiffed blowout and wears a diamond tennis bracelet. Between them, a boy—bigger than Jamie, older-looking—holds an ice pack against his cheekbone with the theatrical suffering of a soap opera actor.
There is one empty chair. It’s positioned to face the other four.
"Ms. Shaughnessy." Galdek gestures at the chair. “Please be seated. This is Mr. and Mrs. Whitmore, and their son Tyler. I'm afraid we have a serious situation."
"That's her?" the mother says to the room, like I'm not in it. "She's a child herself."
"I'm Jamie's legal guardian." I take the empty chair. My spine is straight. My hands are folded. I have done this before, and I know my lines. Apologetic but capable. Concerned but composed. I feel as though I’m facing a firing squad. "Can someone please tell me what happened?"
"What happened," the father says, "is that your brother attacked my son. Unprovoked. Look at his face."
"Tyler required ice," the mother adds, as though ice is a medical procedure.
"Mr. and Mrs. Whitmore's son sustained visible injury," Principal Galdek says, sliding a form across the desk toward me. An incident report. Already filled out. "Multiple students witnessed Jamie throw the first punch. You and I have spoken before about his anger issues."
“What did Jamie say happened?"
"We know what happened," the father says.
“Why is he sitting outside?” My voice is still level. Barely. “Shouldn’t he be?—“
"With all due respect." Galdek folds her hands, and there is no respect anywhere in this building—not for me. "Jamie's account isn't going to change what witnesses saw. And frankly, given his file—the outbursts, the detentions, the home situation...”
The home situation.
And there it is. Because I know what's in that file. It reads like a checklist for troubled youth. It reads like a case already built.
"The home situation is stable," I hear myself say. "The kids are provided for. Jamie is…he's a good kid. He's protective. He has issues, but he wouldn't just?—"
"He broke my son's face," Mrs. Whitmore spits out, one hand resting on Tyler's shoulder. Tyler adjusts his ice pack and doesn't quite hide his smirk.
"It's a bruise.”
"Do you know who we are?" The father leans forward, and his voice does the thing that certain men's voices do, the thing that's supposed to make me smaller, and god help me, it works. "I golf with two members of the school board. We could press this further, you understand. We could involve the police. We're beinggenerouskeeping this in-house."
