He nodded as though that was what he had expected her to say, which it surely was. "Walkers get picked up at the gate," he said. He tipped his head back toward it, forty steps behind him. "Down there."
"I know. I go to the gate at dismissal."
"Dismissal's not for another fifteen minutes or so."
"I know."
"So why are you up here?"
She had known he would ask. There was no way to say it that did not sound strange. She said it anyway, because the truth was the only thing she had that she was sure of. "She looks out the window at three. Her classroom's up there, second floor, third window. We have an arrangement. I stand here, by the tree, so she can see me, and then I go down to the gate."
He looked up at the building. She watched him look. She watched him count windows. The third window from the left had its blinds half up and showed nothing but construction-paper leaves.
"Okay," he said, in a voice that meant nothing was okay yet. "What's your daughter's name?"
She hesitated. It was half a second, if that. It was the hesitation of a woman who had spent ten months being careful about every name she said to every stranger, and it was exactly the wrong length, and she saw him see it.
"Juno," she said. "Juno Garvey. She's in Ms. Oduya's class."