Chapter 257: Family Day.
CAMERON
Lake's school occupied a converted Victorian building in a quiet Seattle neighbourhood. High ceilings. Old radiators that clanked at inconvenient moments. On the morning of Family Day, the place was full of small bodies and big balloons, a building made for adults, temporarily taken over by people under four feet tall.
I had been to corporate functions for fifteen years. Board meetings, shareholder presentations, the careful theatre of professional spaces designed to communicate competence and control. I had never once been nervous walking into any of them.
I was nervous walking into Lake's classroom. Lucian noticed. "You're doing the thing with your jaw," he said quietly, as we signed in at a folding table near the entrance, a volunteer mother handing
