Well, Nicole’s not here. I’m on my own. The first thing that is going to happen is that Caitlyn is going to have to admit the truth and take responsibility. I’ll sort out the rest later.

“Caitlyn, can you come down here, please?” I call towards the stairs.

To my surprise, Caitlyn pokes her head around the entrance to the living room.

“Pumpkin, how long have you been standing there?”

She shrugs.

I motion to the chair across the table. “Please, sit down.”

She cautiously enters the room, pulls out the chair, and eases herself onto it.

“Am I in trouble?” she asks.

“A little. You’re going to tell Ms. Hancourt that you’re sorry and I want to know where you heard that word, but right now, I want to know what’s going on. Tell me what happened with the boy you shoved.”

“I didn’t push him! It was Katherine!”

“Okay, okay, okay. Just tell me what happened.”

She glances towards the living room. Her eyes lock onto something. I try to follow her gaze to see what she’s looking at, but the room is empty.

“Caitlyn?”

She squirms in her seat. “At recess, Katherine wanted me to draw a picture of us, so I did, and I was showing it to her and then Peter asked what we were doing.”

“What was the picture?”

“… It was me and Katherine. He asked who Katherine was, and I said I was the only one who could see her. He said that was dumb and started making fun of it. Katherine got mad and pushed him. Peter started crying because Katherine pushed him so hard. Ms. Hancourt came over and Peter said I pushed him, but I didn’t! It was only because he was standing so close to me and it looked like I pushed him, but it was Katherine!”

I had hoped that talking to her alone would get her to admit that she was making it up. Instead, she’s insisting that her lie is real and it’s my fault. There were multiple times I could have checked this behavior and I didn’t. She’s coping with Nicole’s death in a way I’m not able to handle.

“Okay. Listen, Caitlyn, you can’t—”

“Ms. Hancourt told me to go inside and wait for her, so I did, but Katherine was really mad at her. When we got in the classroom, Katherine started writing on the board—”

“Sweetheart, you have to—”

“And I told her to stop, but she wouldn’t. I kept trying to erase it, but Katherine kept writing. She wrote that word. She said that’s what her dad called the other girl, and that’s what Ms. Hancourt was, and when Ms. Hancourt came in the room, Katherine dropped the marker, and I was standing there, so it looked like I was writing it!”