Sloan sat at the kitchen table. She put her hands in her lap and looked around the room while he stirred something and turned the heat down. She could hear the television from somewhere deeper in the house. The specific audio signature of a children's program. Mia's in her room, Caleb said without looking up.
She'll come out eventually. She's curious about you. She shouldn't be, Sloan said. I'm not an interesting person. Caleb glanced at her over his shoulder, and she caught something in his expression.
Not quite amusement, but something adjacent to it. and brief. That's not what she thinks. She decided you were interesting because you have shoes that make noise. I can take them off. That's not how it works with 8-year-olds, he said.
You're already categorized. Sloan looked at the table. I read your full file, she said. Not just the incident reports, everything. Caleb didn't answer.
He put a lid on the pot and turned around and leaned against the counter and crossed his arms, not defensively. It just seemed to be how he stood when he was listening. I know that doesn't mean anything specific, she said. I'm not trying to make it mean something. I I just I want you to know that I actually looked and I understand what I threw away.
What you threw away? He repeated, not mocking the phrasing. Just repeating it the way people do when a word lands strangely. What the company threw away? She corrected herself.
For years. Not just me. Yeah, he said. For years. She looked up at him.
I also read about your wife. His expression shifted, not closing off, but steadying, the way a person steadies when something is approached that they're accustomed to carrying in a specific way. That's in the file. HR records, length of single parent status. It came up in a review I initiated.