The children absorbed this with the grave seriousness reserved for information they would probably repeat at dinner.
Mason raised his hand.
Wallace looked terrified of what might come next.
“Yes, Mason?”
“So Miss Hayes isn’t fired?”
Emily covered a smile with her hand.
“No,” Wallace said.
“Miss Hayes is not fired.”
Mason nodded, satisfied, and reopened his book.
Sophia looked at her father.
Nicholas looked back.
Something passed between them.
Then Sophia raised her hand too.
Emily called on her.
“Can I have my phone now?”
The room erupted in giggles.
Even Wallace laughed once, mostly from relief.
Emily checked the clock.
“Three minutes until dismissal.”
Sophia groaned.
Nicholas folded his arms.
“You heard your teacher.”
Those four words may have been the most powerful thing he did all afternoon.
He could have asked for an exception.
No one in the building would have refused him.
He did not.
Three minutes later, the dismissal bell rang.
Emily opened the drawer, removed the blue phone and held it out.
Sophia accepted it with both hands.
“Thank you for keeping it safe.”
“You’re welcome.”
The children began collecting backpacks and folders.
Nicholas waited beside the door while Sophia packed slowly, carefully placing each pencil into her case before zipping it shut.
When most of the class had left, he approached Emily.
“I owe you an apology too.”
She frowned.
“For what?”
“I told Sophia I might come early and then let a meeting run long.
She was waiting for a message because she didn’t know whether my plan had changed.”
“That isn’t why I took the phone.”
“I know.”
He looked toward his daughter.
“But it is why she was holding it.”
Emily understood.
Nicholas was not apologizing because she demanded it.
He was identifying his own part in the chain of events.
“I’ll be clearer with her next time,” he said.
Emily nodded.
“That would probably help.”
Most people, she suspected, did not tell Nicholas Moretti what would probably help.
His expression shifted with faint amusement.
Sophia joined them, backpack bouncing against her shoulders.
“Ready, Daddy.”
Nicholas held out his hand.
She took it.
Then she looked at Emily.
