It just spilled out of her: she hedged what Arthur’s drawing was of, exactly, but she did give details of the terrible meeting with Piper the day before, and the way that somehow, by the end of it, she’d agreed to finding a therapist for her kid. She’d accepted that Arthur was the artist, and she’d acknowledged that he was a bully in training and probably a detriment to the school and should perhaps consider other schools to attend. When she was finished, Reginald looked appalled. “And you believed her?”

The question surprised her. “She’s the director of a school, so . . .”

“Yeah, but you’re the parent. You know him best. Have you asked him his side of things?”

Andrea shook her head. “I don’t want to know. It would break my heart.”

Reginald slapped his sides. She’d never seen him so worked up. “My sister had this happen once, with her son. She puts him in preschool at two years old, a tiny thing, and suddenly the preschool teacher’s calling her up and saying that she needs to have him tested for developmental problems because he wasn’t quite like the other kids. Said that if she didn’t get him tested, they wouldn’t be able to take him at the school the following year. But he was two! The teacher had only known him for a month!”

Andrea blinked. “Did she get her kid tested?”

“Nope. He grew out of all his idiosyncrasies, like most kids do. The point is that that teacher jumped to conclusions and made my sister feel bad for weeks.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that,” Andrea said quietly.

Above them, drawn on the wall, was a peculiar caricature of Oscar Wilde. He’d been one of Andrea’s favorite writers in high school, but the drawing didn’t look much like him. Maybe Reginald was right. Was she really letting Piper override her instincts? She and Arthur had talked about her transition ad nauseam. He was brutally honest about other things that bothered him—even things about her, like when her breath smelled like bologna, and how it was weird to cuddle with her now because of her boobs. And yes, okay, he was a four-year-old, and obviously four-year-olds didn’t understand the world like adults did, but it just didn’t fit, Arthur making that drawing.

“Look, I know I’m only seeing this from ten thousand feet, but he’s one of the most well-adjusted kids I’ve ever known,” Reginald said. “Way more mature than most kids his age.”

“So you think I shouldn’t worry about it, then?”

“Dude, if it were me, I’d file a lawsuit. That’s what I said to my sister, too. These preschool people, they think they know everything just because they have an early childhood education degree or whatever, but so often they do more harm than good.”