Chapter 6 - Nine Minutes
Ms. Patel offered him a chair across from a desk covered in children's thank-you cards. She had been principal for seven years and had the patient expression of someone who knew no school conflict stayed inside school walls.
"Josie was supervised the entire time," she said. "Nine minutes is not a crisis. But I do need you to tell the office if you're running late."
"I should've called."
"Yes."
Nate appreciated that she didn't rescue him from the plain fact of it.
"Was Meredith the one who complained?"
"I'm not discussing other parents' messages. I am discussing yours."
He sat back.
Ms. Patel turned a card over. "You volunteer a lot. Staff appreciate that. But there have been tense exchanges around the reading-night committee, and children are beginning to repeat them."
"I didn't start it."
"I didn't say you did."
"I left a senior operations job so Josie could have one parent home. Now the one place that's supposed to know families keeps treating that as a defect."
"That's not how we want parents treated here," Ms. Patel said. "But I also can't make people like one another. I can set expectations for school activities."
She asked whether Nate would consider coordinating volunteers directly with Ms. Bell instead of through the parent group. It was a reasonable idea, delivered without ceremony.
"I can do that," he said.
"Good. And please don't involve the children in the disagreement."
He thought about telling Josie he had run a department bigger than her school.
"I already did a little," he admitted.
Ms. Patel waited.
"I'll make it right."
That afternoon, Nate and Josie sat on the back steps eating orange slices. He said he had been showing off because some people had made him feel small.
"But you're tall," Josie said.
"Not that kind of small."
She gave him a slice with too much white peel. "You can just tell them to stop being rude."
"I should have."
"And don't tell Maeve how much money you used to make. She's seven."
Nate laughed once, then covered his eyes with a hand.
His phone buzzed with a message from Ms. Bell: the fall reading night might be canceled. Several families couldn't attend the six o'clock start, volunteers were short, and the parent committee was considering dropping the weekday event altogether.
Josie watched him read it.
May you like
"Are they canceling the night when I read my poem?"
