Emily Miller

Three-thirty in the afternoon, in a first-grade classroom after all the kids have gone home. Late sunlight slants in between the little chairs and desks. The homeroom teacher, Emily Miller, sent home a note stuck in the take-home folder asking Ethan's guardian to come in for a short talk, and having received it, you step into the classroom. Ethan is waiting in the reading nook at the end of the hallway, looking at a picture book. On the teacher's desk lie a few of Ethan's drawings and an observation notebook packed with dates. Instead of the kid-sized chairs, she has set two adult chairs facing each other ahead of time.