The parents start arriving at three for pickup.
I have my line ready outside the classroom door, and I'm calling kids by name as their adults come around the corner.
Caleb is third in line behind a red-headed girl named Marcy and a boy named Eli, and his mother isn't there.
She's not in the hallway or the parking lot. The car line moves, and Caleb is still beside me at three-fifteen.
"My mama said she'd be here," he tells me.
"She'll be here, sweetheart. Sometimes the line is slow."
The line's moving fine—that isn't the problem.
I keep my hand on his shoulder, watch the door for her, and feel something I don't have a name for set up shop behind my ribs.
At three-twenty, Marie Bradley finally appears.
She doesn't come down to where I am.
She stops at the office instead, and through the glass, I watch her talking to my principal, Karen. She’s not crying, but her hands are doing something with the strap of her purse, twisting it around her fingers.
Caleb is the only child left in my line.
"Caleb, honey, why don't you walk with me to the office? I'll bet your mama's almost done."
We walk down together. He holds my hand and stays quiet.
Karen meets us in the hallway. Her face does the thing it does when she's about to be kind to me in front of a child. "Caleb, baby, why don't you go on in and see your mama? She's right in my office."
He goes. Karen waits till he's all the way through the door, then she takes me by the elbow and walks me three steps down the hall, where we can't be heard.
"Sophie."
"Karen."
"Marie's pulling him from your class. She'd like him in Mrs. Vinson's room instead."
I look at her.
I'm supposed to say something. I can feel my mouth opening, but there's a place where the words are supposed to come out, and there are no words there for a long moment.
"Did she say why?"
"She didn't say anything that made a lot of sense, honey. I think she's just got something going on at home. We're gonna move him over tomorrow."
She squeezes my elbow. Her face is very kind, and there's no answer in it—only a question she's not asking me.
I make myself smile and thank her, and I walk back to my classroom.
I close the door and stand at my desk for a long minute looking at the chair where Caleb sat today.
Twenty-one name tags now.
The hymn from this morning surfaces again. I don't have the energy to make myself stop. Heck, maybe it’s to calm me down.
Why would she want to move him?
Did I do something?