Chapter 29 — Six Months

Six months passed.

Winter gave way to a green, loud spring, and Marbrook Elementary became a different building.

The culture of looking away had been pulled up by the roots — not by me, but by everyone who finally decided the risk of speaking was smaller than the cost of silence.

Birdie transferred back that spring, into a second-grade room down the hall from mine, with a counselor she saw twice a week and a mother who walked her to the gate every morning and was there again every afternoon.

She sat in chairs.