"The vehicle was in a customer area for most of the morning, with the hood open, and your son was unsupervised in the same area for some period before Mr. Marek arrived at the car," Kessler said. "I'm not accusing anyone of anything. But you have to understand how it looks from the outside. A child walks up and names a specific relay out of — what, thirty? Forty? Some people would ask how he knew. Northgate's going to ask. Our insurer is going to ask. So I need to be able to say we looked."
Yolanda stood very still. She had learned to be very still at fifteen, working the register at the Food Lion when men came through her line to say things. She knew that the first one to move lost.
"You think my son broke that car so he could fix it."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to say it, Mr. Kessler. You printed it out."
He moved the paper a half-inch on the desk. "Ms. Toussaint. It's leave. It's not termination. Once we've reviewed the footage and the technician's documentation, I'm sure—"
"Mr. Marek was at that car from eight-fifteen on," she said. "He told me. He was standing right there with the hood open the whole time."
Kessler's jaw moved. "Mr. Marek was on and off the floor. He went to the parts window twice."
She looked at him then, all the way, and he did look back, she'd give him that. Something was going on in his face that she didn't have time to care about.
"I need my badge back by end of shift," he said. "I'm sorry."
"No, you're not," she said, and laid the badge on top of his printout, face down, so the picture of her son was covered.
She didn't cry in the car. She drove home on Route 9 with both hands on the wheel at ten and two and her jaw so tight it ached, and when she got home Pop was at the kitchen table doing his speech-therapy workbook with a fat green pencil, and Ezra was eating cereal before the bus, and she stood in the doorway and both of them looked at her and knew.
She told them. She tried to tell it so it sounded like a paperwork thing. Ezra put his spoon down halfway through.