One, two, three . . .” Andrea looked at Arthur. “What comes after three?”

“Shoe?” Arthur asked.

“Ha-ha, very funny.” She wrote the number three on the piece of construction paper. “What’s after three?”

“Four!” Arthur cried triumphantly.

“Yes! Good!” Andrea pulled her little boy in close. He smelled like sunshine and shampoo. This was lovely. Maybe she could just teach him full-time. She thought of how her mother said homeschooling was a selfish travesty and that children grew up socially deranged and ill-equipped for the real world, but what the hell did Cynthia know?

But as though reading her mind, Arthur whined, “Why didn’t I go to school today?”

“Well, because it’s Saturday,” Andrea said, deflecting. She capped the marker and popped it back into the pencil box. “Are you sure school is a happy place for you?”

“My room has cool diggers. I want to play with the car carrier.”

“Yes, but . . .” How to talk to a child this small? What could she say? What should she leave out? “What would happen if the kids started making fun of you because Mommy’s . . . you know? Different?” She took a breath. “We’ve talked about how we’ve—I’ve—gone through some changes. How I’m not like other moms.”

That drawing was burned in her brain. That X through her body. She’d described it to Jerry. He’d been quiet about it—the same kind of dazed quiet as he’d been the other day, which made her wonder if his mind was starting to jumble. He’d repeated that the drawing Andrea had found was horrible and insidious and perhaps indicative of something very, very wrong happening within the school . . . but it also gave her great motive to hurt Piper. He promised to dig in more. He’d also mentioned that he hadn’t yet found a reporter who’d figured out Andrea’s identity. “Is it possible someone else told your mom?” he asked. “Maybe someone posing as a reporter?”

But who would that be?

Arthur shrugged. “All people are different. Miss Piper says that. Everyone is neek.”

“Neek?” Andrea frowned. Then she got it. “Oh. Unique. Piper said that?”

“Miss Piper. Mr. Carson, too.”

Andrea hadn’t been aware that Piper visited classrooms and gave talks about acceptance. Carson was even more surprising. Wasn’t he just an administrative assistant?

“Do Mr. Carson and Miss Piper seem like they’re friends?” she asked Arthur. “Like really good buddies, like you are with some of your buddies at school, or Reginald?”

Arthur thought about this for a beat, then said, “Uh-huh.”