Chapter 7: The Part That Doesn't End in One Night
The next morning arrived gray and quiet.
Patricia Osei had stayed until nearly midnight.
Before she left, she sat with me at the kitchen table and walked me through what would happen next.
Forensic interview.
Medical examination.
Case referral to the district attorney's office.
A victim advocate assigned to Chloe.
A family support counselor assigned to us.
"She's going to have good days and hard days," Patricia said.
"Sometimes the hard days come after the good ones, because she'll feel safe enough to feel things she couldn't feel before."
"What do I do on those days?"
"You stay," Patricia said.
"You don't fix it.
You don't explain it.
You just stay."
She left me her card.
I put it on the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a sunflower that Chloe had made at school two years ago.
Richard had been taken in for questioning the night before and released pending investigation.
His attorney — the other one, Warren, not Gerald — had arrived twenty minutes after the police and had spent forty minutes in the foyer talking in a low voice with a detective I didn't know.
When the detective came to find me afterward, his face told me nothing.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"The DA's office will review the evidence.
Given the documentation Mr.
Foss provided and the physical evidence, I expect charges will be filed.
I can't give you a timeline."
"What about Dennis Aldren?
Paul Whitmore?"
The detective looked at me carefully.
"Where did you get those names?"
"The envelope.
Gerald Foss brought it."
"Those names are part of an active review," he said.
"I can't discuss specifics.
But I want you to know that your daughter is not the only child whose family we will be speaking with."
That sentence stayed with me all night.
In the morning, Chloe came downstairs in her pajamas and asked if we had any of the good cereal.
"The one with the marshmallows?" I said.
"Yes."
"We don't," I said.
"But I'll go get some."
She sat at the kitchen table and looked at the sunflower magnet on the refrigerator.
"Dad."
"Yeah."
"Are you going to be sad for a long time?"
I looked at her.
"Probably some, yeah.
Are you?"
She thought about it seriously, the way she thought about most things.
"I think I'm mostly tired," she said.
"Like I've been holding something really heavy and I put it down but my arms still feel like it's there."
"That's exactly what it feels like," I said.
She nodded, satisfied that the description was accurate.
"Can we get the cereal with the big marshmallows?" she said.
"Not the small ones."
"Absolutely," I said.
I got my keys.
Meredith appeared at the top of the stairs.
She looked down at Chloe, then at me.
"Can I come?" she said.
Quietly.
To both of us.
Chloe looked at her mother for a moment.
"You have to let me pick the cereal," she said.
Meredith came downstairs.
Three weeks later, Gerald Foss submitted a formal sworn statement to the district attorney's office.
Sandra Pruitt, the teacher from twelve years ago, was located in Oregon.
She had kept everything — her own photographs, a journal, a series of emails she had printed and stored in a fireproof box because she had always believed, she said, that one day someone would come looking.
She flew back.
Dennis Aldren resigned from the foundation the day before his interview with investigators.
He did not resign quietly.
He sent a letter to the foundation board claiming he was the victim of a coordinated campaign.
The board published a statement the following afternoon accepting his resignation and announcing an independent review.
Paul Whitmore's medical license was suspended pending investigation.
And Richard Calloway was formally charged on a Tuesday morning in November, in a courthouse three miles from the auditorium where he had been saving seats.
I was in a meeting when my phone buzzed.
I stepped into the hallway.
"They filed this morning," Gerald said.
"Four counts.
Richard's attorney is already moving for a continuance."
"Did they include the Pruitt evidence?"
"All of it.
And two other families came forward last week.
Children from the foundation program."
I leaned against the wall.
"Gerald," I said.
"Thank you for coming to the door."
A pause.
"I should have come sooner."
"Yes," I said.
"But you came."
I went back into the meeting.
I sat down.
I looked at the papers in front of me and did not read a single word on any of them.
That evening, Chloe had her first session with her new counselor.
When I picked her up, she climbed into the back seat and was quiet for a while.
"How was it?" I said.
"She has a fish tank," Chloe said.
"Yeah?"
"There's one fish that's orange and white.
She said I could name it if I wanted."
"What did you name it?"
Chloe looked out the window.
"I haven't decided yet," she said.
"I want to think about it."
"Take your time," I said.
May you like
She nodded.
We drove home.
