The school called. “Your daughter hasn’t been pick…

cafeteria sugar, the strange institutional sweetness that lingers after children have gone home.

At the far end, on a long wooden bench under a fluorescent light, sat a little girl.

She was tiny.

Jeans. Purple jacket. Pink sneakers that didn’t quite touch the floor. Beside her sat a backpack shaped like a white rabbit. Her knees were tucked up toward continue reading …