I looked at her. I looked at Elsie standing next to her with the star on her shirt, holding her own wrist behind her back. "About an hour ago," I said. "I've been here since about the cupcakes."
Carly understood. I watched her understand. It went across her face like a cloud shadow across the lake, and then it was gone and something else came down over it, something smooth and fixed. She came down the steps. She put a hand on my arm and kissed my cheek, a dry quick kiss, for the people watching. "It's so good you're home," she said, loud enough. "Finn's going to lose his mind."
Mrs. Fjelstad had come down the steps behind her with Elsie. Up close she was shorter than I'd thought, and her eyes behind the reading glasses were pale blue and very steady. She held out her hand to me.
"You must be Elsie's father," she said. "Gerda Fjelstad." Her grip was dry and hard, a gardener's grip. "Mr. Ostlund, I wonder if you and your wife would come in to my classroom for a few minutes. Elsie can come too. Ms. Pham will keep an eye on your son, I've already asked her."
"Now?" Carly said. "It's Finn's birthday, I can't just —"
"It won't take long," Mrs. Fjelstad said. "I'd rather do it today. I don't have many days left." She looked at Carly. "I think you'd rather do it today too."
Her classroom was Room 108, at the end of the first-floor hallway, with windows that looked out on the field. It was half packed. There were cardboard boxes stacked along the wall labeled in black marker, BOOKS — KEEP, BOOKS — DONATE, MISC, and the bulletin boards had been stripped down to the cork, with little triangles of colored paper still stuck under the staples where the borders had been. But the reading corner was still there, a rag rug and two beanbags and a rocking chair, and the little tables still had their nametags taped to the corners. I saw ELSIE O. in purple marker on a table by the window.
Mrs. Fjelstad sat down in the rocking chair. She told Elsie she could go to the reading corner and pick any book she wanted and keep it, as an end-of-year present, and Elsie went and knelt in front of the low shelves and began looking at spines with great seriousness, with her back to us. Carly and I sat in two of the little plastic chairs, because there weren't any others, with our knees up around our chests. Carly put the envelope on the table in front of her and didn't touch it.
"I'll tell you why I did that," Mrs. Fjelstad said, "and then I'll tell you why I asked you in here, and then you can be angry with me, Carly, and that will be all right."