Chapter 4: Rules Are Rules
The ceremony started twelve minutes late.
Leo's name was called fourth from the end, alphabetical, the way it always was.
He wheeled himself across the stage.
The principal handed him his diploma without making eye contact.
The room applauded.
I clapped until my hands ached.
Afterward, in the lobby, a woman I didn't recognize came up to us.
She was somewhere in her fifties, gray at her temples, wearing a lanyard that said DISTRICT BOARD — OBSERVER.
"Mrs.
Calloway?" she said, looking at Samantha.
"Yes."
"My name is Ruth Adler.
I'm a board trustee.
I was here today in an unofficial capacity, but—" She paused.
"I saw what happened before the ceremony.
I'd like to talk, if you're willing."
Samantha looked at me.
I gave her nothing.
This was her moment.
"We're willing," Samantha said.
They found a corner near the trophy cases.
Leo stayed with me.
He was holding his diploma in both hands, looking at it.
"You okay, baby?"
"Yeah." He turned it over.
Ran his thumb along the gold seal.
"I just keep thinking about how long it took to get this piece of paper."
"Thirteen years."
"Thirteen years." He looked up.
"And he almost made me wait outside for it."
"He didn't, though."
"No." Leo smiled, small and tired.
"He didn't."
Across the lobby, I could see Samantha talking to Ruth Adler.
Samantha had the document out again.
Ruth Adler was reading it, and her expression was not the expression of someone reading something for the first time.
Higgins appeared from a side hallway.
He saw Samantha and Ruth Adler together.
He stopped walking.
Ruth Adler looked up from the document and met his eyes across the lobby.
Higgins turned and went back the way he came.
Twenty minutes later, Samantha found us by the main doors.
"Ruth Adler has been investigating Foss for two years," she said quietly.
"She didn't know about the emails.
She didn't know Higgins was involved."
"She does now," I said.
"She does now." Samantha folded the document and put it back in the bag.
"She wants originals.
She wants to know if we'll make a formal statement to the board."
"Will we?"
Samantha looked at Leo.
Leo looked at his diploma.
"Tell her yes," he said.
That evening, I sat at my kitchen table while Samantha made calls.
Leo was in the next room.
I could hear him on the phone with someone — a friend, I thought, laughing at something.
A real laugh, loose and easy, the kind I hadn't heard from him in months.
My phone buzzed.
A text from a number I didn't recognize.
*You should have left this alone.
You don't know who you're dealing with.*
May you like
I set the phone face-down on the table.
Then I picked it up again and took a screenshot.
