“My father left when I was five,” he said. “I never saw him again. Every year, my school had a father-son breakfast. And every year, I sat in the library.”
He looked up.
“With juice and muffins,” he said quietly.
Jess put her hand over her mouth.
“I told myself it didn’t matter,” Dr. Prentiss said. “I told myself it built character. That it taught me
to be self-sufficient.”
He shook his head.
“When I became headmaster,” he said, “and the board asked me to restore the tradition, I thought, Well, I survived the library. Other boys can survive it too.”
He swallowed.
“I didn’t understand,” he said, “that the whole reason I wrote that note was because I was still that boy in the library. Still angry. Still waiting for somebody to come get me.”
“Nobody ever came for you,” I said.
He looked at me.
“No, sir,” he said. “Nobody ever did.”
