“She just wants to explain things,” Seth said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“She feels terrible about all of this.”

I took my winter coat off the break room coat rack and walked out to my car.

Heather was already sitting in a booth by the front window of High Street Bistro when I got there at ten past one.

Her three-year-old, Ben, was asleep in a stroller next to her chair, while Maddie sat quietly drawing with a purple crayon on a paper placemat.

Heather pressed her lips together and clutched her phone with both hands as I sat down across from her.