I made it and set the table and she sat down and we ate, and she asked about school the way she always asked about school.
I told her about the semester.
Not the assembly part — she knew that. The rest of it. The things that had happened after, the small shifts in how rooms felt when I walked into them, the boys who had apologized in the specific sideways manner of teenagers who have decided apology is necessary but are not entirely sure how to execute it. The girl
who had come up to me the week after and said, quietly: “I didn’t laugh. I just want you to know I didn’t laugh.”
My mother listened with her full attention.
When I finished she said: “How are you?”
“Good,” I said. “Better.”
“You handled it right,” she said.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “The admiral—”
“Before that,” she said. “In the classroom. You stood there and you didn’t make yourself smaller.” She looked at her rice. “That’s the part I was proud of.”
“How did you know about
