The clatter of computer keys echoed in the room, overpowering the street sounds slipping through the cracked window. Imani turned her attention back to Angelique’s application. If she hoped to make a dent in the pile before her kids came home, she’d have to read an application every fifteen minutes.

“I found his letter!”

Barbara’s victory took ten years off her face. She looked like the girl she’d once been, brandishing an A-paper.

“Who is it?”

“Looks like”—Barbara scrolled down a page—“Layla Sayre.”

She’d said something else, Imani thought. The brain often substituted familiar names for others. “Layla Sayre?”

“This is what I was talking about,” Barbara said, reading: “‘While ethnic and religious diversity is key to developing the world that we want to live in and create via St. Catherine’s, so too is economic and occupational diversity. Layla is a smart, hardworking, dedicated little lady with considerable academic promise being raised by a single mother with Appalachian roots. Layla’s grandparents are farmers, and her mother has mentioned to me that she grew up working the land. Our city-dwelling students could learn a thing or two about America from Layla’s upbringing and her mother’s experience. Imagine reading Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and gaining the perspective of a kid who visits grandparents and works on a farm? Full disclosure, mom is an aspiring actress who has auditioned for me multiple times and spoken at length about how her background developed her work ethic. I have witnessed how Tonya’s experience rounds out the characters that she portrays. Surely, her daughter will enrich her classmates’ experience as well.’”

Barbara kept reading, but Imani had heard all she’d needed. Nate had clearly met Tonya multiple times. Yet the woman sleeping upstairs in her house had claimed not to know him. In Imani’s experience, such lies meant only one thing: an affair.

“Nate’s scholarship pays for Layla to go to school,” Imani said, confirming the news to herself.

“Yes.” Barbara sat back, impressed. “She’ll be in the middle school now. We can reach out to her mother and—” Barbara looked up at her, brow furrowed. “Is something wrong?”

Imani could only imagine the expression visible on the top half of her face. She tried to picture a blank wall, but the only image her brain would serve up was Tonya from earlier, her head cocked toward an exposed shoulder, denying that she ever knew Nate.

“I…I just remembered that I have a patient.” Imani gathered her purse from the table. “I’m so sorry. I’ll read these later. Okay? I’ll find time to come in—”

“Don’t worry,” Barbara said. “I don’t know how you juggle everything. I’ll send you the files via email.”