"Can I come in for 10 minutes? I'm not here to offer you a job." He studied her face for a moment. Then he stepped back from the door. The house was small and organized in the specific way of a home where one adult was managing everything and had built systems to compensate for not having enough hands. Mia's backpack hung on a hook by the door beside a row of smaller hooks holding her jacket, her raincoat, and what appeared to be a butterfly net.
The living room had a bookshelf that was alphabetized up to a certain point and then gave way to chaos, which Sloan took to be the point at which Mia had started helping with the organization. There were drawings on the refrigerator held by mismatched magnets. A pile of mail on the counter that had been sorted into two stacks, dealt with and not yet dealt with, with a precision that suggested the sorting had been done by an adult, but the second pile was taller. It was the home of a man who was trying to keep everything running and was mostly succeeding. "Sit down if you want," Caleb said, moving back toward the stove.
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.