Chapter 4

The principal called before nine and told me Graham could not pick Owen up alone that afternoon.

I was standing at the pharmacy counter, filling the rescue inhaler the school nurse had used from Owen's bag. For a second, I had to grip the counter because I had spent the whole night believing I would have to fight strangers for the right to collect my own child.

"The old emergency list is suspended," Principal Hargrove said. "Both parents may collect Owen, but neither of you may change contacts, medical notes, or pickup permissions while we investigate. Ivy Marsh is no longer an authorized pickup."

"Thank you," I said.

It was not enough to thank him for undoing something that should never have been done. But it was a real change. Graham could no longer use a checked box to send someone else into my place.

When I reached school, Owen was waiting with his backpack on his lap. The nurse handed me a new paper packet with both of our names printed at the top.

"This is temporary," she said. "For now, all episode calls go to both parents at the same time."

Owen looked from her to me. "Will Dad be mad?"

"Dad can have his feelings," I said, taking his hand. "The school is making sure nobody has to guess where you belong."

Graham was waiting by my car.

He had loosened his tie and put on the worried face he used at school board meetings. "You made them flag me as a risk?"

"No. Your signature flagged you."

"I was trying to keep the day organized. You work nights. Ivy was available."

"Available isn't the same as authorized. And exhausted isn't the same as unfit."

His gaze flicked to Owen. "Can we not do this in front of him?"

"You wrote it in front of him. You just used a portal instead of your voice."

Owen's fingers tightened around mine. Graham saw it and lowered his voice.

"I didn't mean for him to hear any of this."

"Then stop making decisions about his mother that he's to discover afterward."

I buckled Owen into the car. Before I shut his door, he asked whether Ivy knew she had been removed from the list.

"I don't know," I said. "But she'll."

At home, Graham followed us into the kitchen as if he still had the right to settle the room by standing in it.

"I was covering the gaps you leave," he said. "That's all."

I put Owen's inhaler beside the fruit bowl, where I could see it.

"Tonight," I said, "you're going to tell me every gap you decided someone else could fill."