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Mr. Raditzky, Joey’s central section advisor.”
    Middle school was a lot different nowadays, Graham reflected. He’d never had advisors. And “central section” sounded like a communist spy organization.
    “Graham Boyd. I’m Brynn’s husband.”
    “Sure. How you doing?”
    “Good, thanks.”
    “Is Ms. McKenzie there?”
    “She’s out, I’m afraid. Can I take a message? Or can I help you?”
    Graham had always wanted children. He made his living with plants but he had an innate desire to nurture more than that. His first wife had decided against motherhood, suddenly and emphatically—and well into the marriage. Which was a big disappointment to Graham. He believed he had instinctive skills for parenting and his radar was picking up early warning signals from Mr. Raditzky’s tone.
    “Well, I want to talk to you about something. . . . Did you know Joey cut school today? And that he was ’phalting.” Something faintly accusatory in the tone.
    “Cut school? No, he was there. I dropped him off myself. Brynn had to be at work early.”
    “Well, he did cut, Mr. Boyd.”
    Graham fought the urge to deny. “Go on, please.”
    “Joey came to central section this morning, gave me a note that he had a doctor’s appointment. And left at ten. It was signed by Ms. McKenzie. But after we heardhe hurt himself, I checked in the office. It wasn’t her signature. He forged it.”
    Graham now experienced the same unexpected alarm he’d felt last summer while wheeling a plant across a customer’s yard, not realizing he’d rolled it over a yellow jackets nest. Blithe and happy, enjoying the day, unaware that the threat had already been unleashed and dozens of attackers were on their way.
    “Oh.” He looked up in the direction of the boy’s bedroom. From it came the muted sounds of a video game.
    Homework  . . .
    “And what else did you say? ‘Defaulting’?”
    “The word is apostrophe P-H, ’phalting. As in ‘asphalt.’ It’s when kids run up behind a truck at a stoplight with their skateboards and hold on. That ’s how Joey hurt himself.”
    “He wasn’t in your school lot?”
    “No, Mr. Boyd. One of our substitutes was on her way home. She saw him on Elden Street.”
    “The highway ?”
    In downtown Humboldt, Elden was a broad commercial strip but once past the town line it returned to its true nature, a truck route between Eau Claire and Green Bay, where the posted limit meant nothing.
    “She said the truck was doing probably forty when he fell. He’s only alive because there weren’t any cars close behind him and he veered into a patch of grass. Could’ve been a telephone pole or a building.”
    “Jesus.”
    “This needs some attention.”
    I talked to him.  . . .
    “It sure does, Mr. Raditzky. I’ll tell Brynn. I know she’ll want to talk to you.”
    “Thanks, Mr. Boyd. How’s he doing?”
    “Okay. Scraped up a little.”
    He’s fine.  . . .
    “He’s one lucky young man.” Though there was an undercurrent of criticism in the man’s tone. And Graham didn’t blame him.
    He was about to say good-bye when something else popped into his head. “Mr. Raditzky.” Graham crafted a credible lie. “We were just talking about something yesterday. Was there any fallout from that scuffle Joey was in?”
    A pause. “Well, which one?”
    Lord, how many were there? Graham hedged. “I was thinking about the one last fall.”
    “Oh, the bad one. In October. The suspension.”
    Treading again blithely over a yellow jackets nest . . . Brynn’d told him there was a pushing match at the school’s Halloween party, nothing serious. Graham recalled Joey had stayed home afterward for a few days—because he hadn’t felt well, Brynn explained. But that was a lie, it seemed. So he’d been suspended.
    The teacher said, “Ms. McKenzie told you the parents decided not to sue, didn’t she?”
    Lawsuit? . . . What exactly had Joey done? He said, “Sure. But I was mostly wondering about