“I couldn’t do it from a classroom,” he said. “A teacher can see twenty-eight. A principal sees four hundred.”
He took the job.
He did not know, when he took it, that he was applying to the school Wynne would attend. He told me that three times, quite urgently, in case I thought he had planned it. “It’s a small county, Mrs. Eastwood. It’s one of two elementary schools. I would have walked past her in a hallway, if she’d come one year earlier, and not known.”
Mr. Amory rang her himself.
I was in his office when he did it. He asked me whether I would rather be there, and I said yes, and he put the phone on speaker, and said “Mrs. Linwood, my name is Mark Amory. I’m the principal of an elementary school in your county. I’d like to ask whether you have a moment, and whether you would be sitting down.”
There was a silence.
“I’m seventy-seven years old, young man,” said a rough, careful voice. “I’m always sitting down.”
“I was a volunteer firefighter on the night your son d*ed.”
The silence was longer this time.
“I was there, ma’am. I was the one who got to the car. And before he d*ed, he asked me to tell you three things, and I have been trying to tell you for seven years.”
