It was November when she knocked.
A grey, wet morning, the kind where the rain isn’t heavy enough to warrant an umbrella but consistent enough to be unpleasant. I was putting the recycling out and looked up to find Denise standing near my hedge.
My stomach tightened automatically before I had consciously registered why.
Her car was parked in one of the two legal spaces in front of her own house.
She was holding an envelope.
“I wanted to give you this,” she said.
I didn’t take it immediately. “What is it?”
“Nothing strange.” She held it out. “Just read it.”
Inside was a single printed page. A letter, on school letterhead, from a primary school I didn’t recognize.
Denise said, “I started working there. Office administrator. Started in September.”
I looked up.
“Three weeks in,” she said, “a mother came to the office in quite a state. Her daughter had six late marks on her record.”
