I simply walked to Mrs.
Brennan’s room and knocked.
She looked up from her desk.
Her eyes went first to my face, then to the leather.
I saw the moment she recognized what had changed.
“Mr.
Cole?”
I held up Annabelle’s essay.
“I forgot to say thank you.”
She looked surprised.
“For what?”
I glanced down at the little patch over my heart.
“For making sure she was okay before you made up your mind about what you were reading.”
Mrs.
Brennan nodded slowly.
Then she smiled.
“She’s a very perceptive kid.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Apparently more perceptive than her old man.”
I asked her one more question.
“Does Annabelle know the essay caused a meeting?”
Mrs.
Brennan said she knew that her writing had prompted a family conversation but had not been made to feel she had done something wrong.
That mattered to me.
“Good,” I said.
“Because I don’t want her thinking she has to write around who we are.”
“Neither do I,” Mrs.
Brennan said.
I left again.
This time I did not put the rain jacket back on.
When I reached the parking lot, Holly was leaning against the truck with her arms crossed.
She looked at the jacket on the Harley, then at me.
“Well,” she said, “that lasted eight years.”
I shook my head.
“Kid ruined my whole system.”
Holly smiled.
“By understanding it?”
“Apparently.”
That evening, Annabelle was at the kitchen table when we got home.
She knew we’d been to the school.
She tried to act casual about it, which at twelve means being so obviously casual that you can hear the effort.
I put her essay on the table.
She glanced at it.
Then at me.
Then at the leather cut I was still wearing.
Her eyebrows rose.
“You wore that inside?”
“Second time through.”
She stared at me.
“Why?”
I pulled out a chair.
“Because apparently my daughter has opinions.”
She groaned.
“Dad.”
“Strong opinions.
Published opinions.”
