Part 5
“I don’t know yet,” Beth said. She wanted a better answer for Nora, but the school hadn’t made one available. “I’ll find out who’s going to be with you.”
Mr. Vale heard her. He told Beth he would call before the next morning’s bell, and she made sure he had her number. Nora stayed beside them until they finished, carrying the folder against her chest.
The call came that evening: Mrs. Larkin would take Room 3B on Friday while the school addressed what had happened. Beth told Nora before breakfast, giving her the name twice so she wouldn’t have to discover the change by opening the classroom door. At pickup, Nora said Mrs. Larkin had crouched beside her desk and waited for her answer.
Tuesday’s written notice, two school days after the substitute took over, confirmed Ms. Rusk’s administrative leave pending investigation. Mr. Vale had told the staff to raise doubts privately with families and would offer an optional way to clarify projects about military service or other family work. Thursday’s assembly would explain how to ask for help, without naming Nora. Beth filed the notice with her receipt notes after calling to confirm that last promise; she wanted to be able to find the exact words if she needed them.
By Wednesday, Nora had stopped bringing the blue folder to school. She put it in the drawer with her finished drawings, leaving the bent corner alone. Beth noticed, but didn’t ask her why.
At dinner Nora began mentioning her father in the middle of other things again. A dog in her reading book had ears like Flint’s. A math problem used the word partner. She could say those things and then ask somebody to pass the butter.
Afterward, she spread her homework on the kitchen table. There were twenty subtraction problems, crowded together, and she had got two different answers to the first. Her mother was washing the dinner plates; her father had called to say he would be late.
Nora took a clean sheet from the printer tray and covered all but one row. She moved it down, then back up until only the first problem showed. Ms. Rusk had taught her to do that. For a moment she held the sheet above the page, as though she ought to put it away, before lowering it again.
Beth dried her hands and came over when Nora called. Nora asked her to check one answer, keeping the rest of the page covered. When her mother asked whether she wanted help with the next one, she said she’d try it first. Beth sat at the other end of the table and began sorting the mail.
Later, Nora told her she’d been scared when Mrs. Larkin asked her to wait at her desk. She’d gripped the chair seat until the teacher returned with a missing library slip. Beth thanked her for telling her, although she wished an ordinary request could feel ordinary to her daughter again.
“Did you think she’d found something wrong?” Beth asked.
Nora nodded. She pushed her finished homework across the table, then pulled it back to check that she’d written her name. “I knew I hadn’t done anything.”
Her mother stayed quiet while Nora put the page in her backpack. Beth had wanted to tell her that next time would be easier. She folded a grocery circular and left that promise unsaid.
Adam had resumed his regular duties at the nearby base, and Flint still spent his nights at the unit kennels. Thursday’s cleared visits—the school gate before duty and a pickup afterward—would be their last for now. Nora asked her father to say the afternoon part again. He told her the same curb as always.
In the morning, he met Beth and Nora near the gate, wearing jeans and a plain jacket. Nora reached him first. He crouched so she wouldn’t have to tip her head back, keeping the leash in his left hand as Flint sat beside him.
“I’m proud of how you got through this,” he said.
Nora rubbed her thumb along her backpack strap. “I didn’t do anything big.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She looked at Flint, waiting until her father nodded before resting her hand on the dog’s head. His fur was warmer than the morning air. He turned one ear beneath her palm, following a sound behind the fence, and stayed sitting.
Nora let go when the bell rang. Her father had to get to base, and she had to get to her room before Mrs. Larkin finished taking attendance. She looked back once from the doors and lifted her hand; he was standing now, watching until she went inside.
In the multipurpose room that afternoon, Mr. Vale stood with a few sheets of paper at the microphone. Nora sat with her class and watched a loose thread on the stage curtain move in the air from a vent.
When he began talking about asking for help, she glanced along the row. He didn’t tell her story. He didn’t ask her to stand, and none of the children turned to look at her. Nora loosened the fingers she had linked around her knees and listened until he put the papers down.
At the final bell, Nora came through the gate and saw her father by the curb, Flint beside his leg. She ran the last few steps, her backpack bouncing, and reached for his free hand.
They walked past the playground and the flagpole, where the American flag hung almost still. Adam let her hand rest loosely in his; she matched his stride without being pulled along. Just behind them, Flint’s tags made a small sound with each step.