Piper sometimes startled when a classroom door slammed.

Once, after another child joked about hiding in a cabinet, she began crying.

The school had responded without making her the center of a spectacle.

“We don’t need her to be brave every minute,” Mrs.

Ellison said.

“We need her to know she can ask for help.”

Whitney wrote that sentence in her notebook.

On the way out, she asked if I wanted coffee.