I laughed cynically and looked to the sky. Bo had just put into words the same anxiety that incessantly nipped at my heels, informing my every move. “I have no idea, Bo. I can’t hide from that fear, either.” Maybe it was Bo’s vulnerability, or little Fiona’s insistence that one should not be a dirty liar, but right then, I couldn’t avoid meeting my regrets honestly. I looked them in the face, and, as Grandduff used to say, they were as ugly as homemade sin. “I’ve made some bad choices recently,” I said. I’d been meaning to say something to Bo since the Darley fiasco, and now I had the words. “My plan, basically, of blackmailing Melinda Darley was a stupid idea, and it was wrong, and I’m really sorry I put you and Miles in that position.”

“You were playing the game,” replied Bo. He wasn’t sympathetic, just stating a fact.

“Yes,” I agreed, picturing the classroom, the children with their muscles and the word that had come to me: character. “But maybe I’m done playing it.”

Bo nodded. “I think that’s right,” he said. “I think that might be part of what gets this knot out of my chest. We have to live on our own terms, not disappearing into someone else’s expectations for us.” He was serious for a moment, then let his head fall back and yelled, startling into flight some birds settled under the school’s cornice, drawing some very confused stares from the playground’s occupants, each word its own exclamation: “I’m. Never. Going. To. Be. A. Lawyer!”

It was so wildly out of character that we both burst out laughing.

“I’d recommend some screaming,” said Bo after I had wiped my eyes with a napkin he’d found in a pocket. “Very therapeutic. Get your voice out there. Make it loud. Do you want to try it?”

“Yes!” I smiled. “What should I say?”

“It’s your last day on earth,” said Bo. “What do you want people to know?”

Before I could think too hard about the kindergartners and their teachers less than fifty feet away, I cupped my hands around my mouth and, somewhere between a yell and a holler, declared to the world, “My. Father. Stole. For. Me!”

Bo widened his eyes. “Damn,” he croaked. “That was a little more—truthful than I expected.”

“Melinda Darley wasn’t wrong,” I said, strangely peaceful, a lightness in my body that hadn’t been there before. “My tuition, my father stole it. I don’t want to be dishonest to you anymore.”

“You do know what would happen if—” said Bo.

He didn’t have to finish his sentence. “I know,” I said.