Perkins voice was controlled but tight. Don't panic. What happened? Amara fell during recess. The school called me because they couldn't reach you.
She's at the nurse's office. They think she may have broken her wrist. He was already untying his apron. I'm leaving now, he said. She's not in danger.
She's leaving now. He found Marcus. Said four words. My daughter, I'm gone. Marcus nodded once and Daniel was out the back door before the sentence finished landing.
He called the school from the sidewalk. Then he called a cab because the train would take 23 minutes and the cab would take eight and 8 was the only number that mattered. Amara was sitting on the nurse's cot with her left wrist wrapped in a temporary splint and Gerald, who she had brought to school that day in her backpack, apparently held tightly in her other arm. Her eyes were red. She had been crying.
She looked up when he came in and her face did the thing that broke him every single time. The relief, the overwhelming visible relief of a child seeing the person who is safest to fall apart in front of. "Dad," she said, and then she cried. He crossed the room in four steps and sat on the cot and put his arms around her and she cried into his shoulder and he said nothing, just held her because that was the only thing that was needed right now. And Daniel knew how to identify the only thing that was needed.
"You're okay," he said quietly. "I've got you. You're okay. It really hurts. She said, "I know.
We're going to the hospital right now and they're going to fix it. Is it broken?" Probably, but probably just a small break. The wrist kind is usually pretty minor. He had no idea if this was true.
He was saying it because it sounded true and she needed true right now. She pulled back and looked at him. Her face was blotchy and her hair had escaped its braid and she still had dried paint on her shirt from art class. That morning. I fell off the monkey bars, she said.
I figured. Kayla dared me. Amara, I know, I know, she sniffled. Can we get hot chocolate after the hospital? Yes, the kind with the big marshmallows.
Yes. She nodded, satisfied. Pressed her face back against his shoulder. He held her and looked at the ceiling and breathed and told himself, "She is fine. She is here.