Chapter 5
The next morning, I waited in the social worker’s office instead of going to class. The room had a low bookshelf, two green chairs, and a clock that clicked louder than any clock needed to.
My teacher came in before the first bell.
“You won’t be in the meeting,” she said. “Neither will I, unless the principal asks me to provide information.”
“Is she here yet?”
“No.”
I rubbed the edge of my red sleeve between my fingers.
“What if she says she wants to see me?”
“She won’t be allowed private contact with you.”
“What if she cries?”
My teacher took a slow breath. “Then she cries.”
The answer surprised me. At home, tears meant everyone else had to change what they were doing. Here, the clock kept clicking.
When the front office door opened down the hall, I heard my stepmom’s voice before I saw her. It was soft and careful, the voice she used with neighbors.
“I’m only trying to understand why no one called me before frightening Emily.”
The social worker closed her office door, but it didn’t latch. A thin space remained between the door and frame.
“You don’t need to listen,” she told me.
I nodded, but I listened anyway.
The principal asked my stepmom to sit down. A chair scraped. Papers shifted.
“She has always had trouble following bedtime rules,” my stepmom said. “If she was tired, it was because she refused to settle down. She makes up stories when she thinks she’s in trouble.”
My hands went cold.
The social worker crossed the room and pushed the door fully shut. “You’re safe here.”
“She knows what to say,” I whispered.
“That doesn’t make it true.”
“She sounds true.”
The social worker sat in the other green chair. “Truth isn’t a sound.”
A few minutes later, someone knocked. The principal stood outside with my teacher.
“We need your written timeline,” the principal told her. “Mrs. Hayes is asking to speak with you alone.”
It was the first time I heard someone at school say my stepmom’s last name that morning. It made her feel closer, as if the office had let part of the house inside.
My teacher’s mouth became a straight line. “I won’t meet with her privately. I’ve submitted my report, and any questions can go through the investigator.”
“She says you misunderstood what you saw.”
“I know what I saw.”
The principal gave one short nod. “Put that in writing too.”
My teacher used the desk in the corner. She wrote the date, the time she had found me asleep, and what happened when my sleeve slipped. She paused only once, when she reached the words I had said.
“I’m writing your exact words,” she told me. “Nothing more.”
I watched the pen move. It was the same kind as the one I had held through the night, though mine was back in the safe room with my folded clothes.
From the hallway, my stepmom’s voice rose.
“She bruises easily. Children do. You’re turning a household rule into something ugly.”
I stood before I realized I was moving.
The social worker stepped between me and the door, not touching me. “Where do you want to go?”
The question slowed me down.
“Bathroom,” I said.
She walked with me but waited outside. In the stall, I stared at the red sleeve covering my arm. My stepmom’s voice seemed to follow me through the walls. She had explanations for the tiredness, the bruises, and the kennel. She could make each thing sound small by itself.
When I came out, the hallway was empty.
“Did she leave?” I asked.
“She was asked to continue future contact through the county.”
“Was she mad?”
“Yes.”
The social worker didn’t soften it. I was grateful and scared at the same time.
At lunch, I sat at a small table in the office and tried to eat macaroni from a cardboard tray. My teacher brought my schoolwork, but neither of us opened it.
“What if everybody believes her later?” I asked.
“They don’t have to choose based on who sounds nicest,” she said. “They can look at the record.”
“She said I don’t follow rules.”
“That isn’t evidence that you were safe.”
I pushed one noodle around with my fork. “I didn’t always do what she told me.”
My teacher leaned forward slightly. “Emily, children can break rules. Adults still have to keep them safe.”
The late bell rang. She returned to class, and I stayed with the social worker.
Near dismissal, Ms. Alvarez arrived with another folder. She said the house visit photographs were being reviewed and that the county was asking a judge for temporary restrictions on contact.
“You won’t have to speak with your stepmom,” she told me.
I should have felt better.
Instead, I remembered the pale sweater, the careful voice, and how quickly adults at the front desk had offered her a chair.
As Ms. Alvarez packed the papers, I noticed a printed photograph inside the folder. Only one corner showed before she covered it. I saw the fence and the red bucket beside the kennel.
“Wait,” I said.
May you like
She stopped.
“There’s something else.”
