She said I should have just asked
her; she would have signed the
form anyway. Then Abel, who’d
been sitting in the kitchen with us,
watching the whole thing, said,
“Hey, can I talk to you for a
second?” Then he took me into this
tiny room, a walk-in pantry off the
kitchen, and he closed the door
behind us.
He was standing between me
and the door, but I didn’t think
anything of it. It didn’t occur to me
to be scared. Abel had never tried to
discipline me before. He’d never
even given me a lecture. It was
always “Mbuyi, your son did this,”