The main office at Halverton East has a long counter, a wall of mailboxes, and a glass door that leads back to the administrative offices. Through the glass I could see him before anyone saw me. He was sitting in a plastic chair outside the assistant principal's door with his hands in his lap, and for one second I didn't understand why he was holding them like that, together, at the wrists. Then I did.
I have intubated people. I have stood at the head of a bed and held a bag over the face of a nineteen-year-old who had stopped breathing in the back seat of a friend's car, and counted, and counted, and counted. I have a steady temperament. It's the only reason anyone would let me do what I do. But I put my hand on that counter in the main office, and the counter was the only reason I stayed up.
"Ms. Mavrides." Dr. Pemberton came out from behind the glass. She was a tall woman in her fifties with reading glasses on a beaded chain and the posture of somebody who'd coached volleyball for a long time before she became an administrator. "Thank you for coming so quickly. Please, come back."
"Why is my son handcuffed?"
"Deputy Saldana will explain the procedure. Please."
They let me sit next to him for about four seconds before the assistant principal opened his door. Izzy looked at me. His face was blotched red, the way it goes when he's been fighting not to cry, and he opened his mouth and nothing came. His jaw worked. I watched him try for the M in Mom and not get there.
"It's okay," I said. "Don't talk. You don't have to talk."
"Ms. Mavrides, I'm Lyndon Harrower. We met at orientation." The assistant principal held out his hand, and I looked at it, and he took it back without any sign of offense, which I remember thinking was gracious of him. He was about forty-five, trim, in a quarter-zip pullover with the Halverton East falcon on it and khakis with a crease. He had the good, even, open face of a man who coaches JV soccer and remembers your kid's name. "I'm so sorry we're meeting again this way. Please come in."
His office had a window onto the faculty parking lot, a framed print of a lighthouse, which struck me even then as an unfortunate coincidence, and a round table with four chairs. On the table was a clear plastic evidence bag, and in it was a small zippered pouch, black with a red stripe, which I didn't recognize. Next to it was Izzy's backpack, a gray-and-orange one with a Steel City Aquatics patch ironed on the front pocket from his old club in Pittsburgh.
The deputy was already at the table. Rhett Saldana was the school resource officer, a broad man in his thirties with a sheriff's office uniform and a soft Kentucky accent, and he stood up when I came in, which I would also remember later.
"Ma'am," he said. "I'm going to be straight with you, because I think you'd want that. At about seven fifteen this morning the school's anonymous tip line received a message saying that a sophomore named Isidore Mavrides was carrying pills in his backpack and planning to sell them at lunch. Mr. Harrower, per district policy, conducted a search of the student's belongings during second period, with me present. In the front pocket of the backpack he found that pouch." He nodded at it. "Inside the pouch were two vape cartridges that appear to contain THC oil and a plastic bag with fourteen blue tablets stamped to look like a prescription painkiller. Given the quantity and the tip, I've placed your son under arrest for possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to distribute. He's going to be transported to juvenile intake at the county."
I said, "No."
It wasn't an argument. It was just the only word available.