Patricia reached the railing. She did not climb over it. She stood at it, looking down at the mats, six feet below, gripping the top rail with both hands.
"Dana," she said. Her voice was low and pleasant and carried exactly as far as she wanted it to. "I think everyone needs to calm down. This is neither the time nor the place. Whatever this is, it can be handled privately, through the proper channels, on Monday. With the family. There's no need for a public spectacle."
"With respect, Patricia," said Coach Williams, without turning around, "your daughter made it a public spectacle. I'm just finishing it."
Patricia's knuckles whitened on the rail. Her eyes moved from the coach to the tall man in dress blues standing beside her, and stayed there.
"And you must be the father," she said.
Malcolm looked up at her. He inclined his head very slightly.
"Mrs. Cross. Malcolm Johnson."
"I know who you are, Commander. I read the program." Her smile was thin and bright. "I want to say, first, that I'm very sorry your daughter fell. Truly. But I'd also like to say that I don't think it's appropriate, at all, for a parent, any parent, regardless of rank, to come onto a high school field and confront a seventeen-year-old girl in front of three thousand people. I think a lot of people here would agree with me. I think the superintendent will agree with me. And I think the school board will—"
"Mrs. Cross," said Malcolm.
He did not raise his voice. He simply said her name, and she stopped.
"You're right," he said. "You're right that it should be handled through the proper channels. I agree. It is being. I went to the principal this morning. I gave him everything I have. The investigation is his. Not mine. The decision about your daughter is his, and the district's, and Coach Williams's. Not mine. I'm not here to punish anybody. I came here tonight because I was invited, weeks ago, to toss a coin. Then I watched my daughter go over that railing to help a girl who called her a charity case this morning, while your daughter stood over that girl and told her to stop being dramatic. I came down here to make sure my daughter was all right. And I asked one question." He paused. "Your daughter answered it. Not me."
Patricia's mouth had gone very thin.
"As for the school board," Malcolm went on, in the same quiet, even voice, "I've read the minutes. All of them. They're public. I didn't need anybody's help to find them. You recused yourself from the vote on the new wing three years ago. That was the right thing to do. You didn't recuse yourself from the vote on the change order eighteen months later. Two point one million dollars. To your husband's company." He let that sit for a second in the silence. "I don't know whether that was a problem. I'm not a lawyer, and it's not my job to decide. There are people whose job it is. If they want to look at it, they'll find it in the same place I did, on your district's own website, page fourteen. That's all I have to say about it. I won't be saying anything else about it tonight, or to anybody but them." He looked up at her steadily. "I'd suggest you think hard about whether you want to keep talking about phone calls, ma'am. In front of all these cameras."
Patricia Cross stood at the railing with her hands on the rail and her mouth slightly open.
Behind her, in the stands, someone said, quite loudly, "Page fourteen," and someone else laughed, and then stopped laughing.
And then the ambulance came through the gate at the end of the field with its lights turning red and white across the grass, and the moment broke.
It happened fast after that. Two paramedics, a man and a woman, came across the track with a stretcher and a bag, and Coach Williams waved them over, and they knelt beside Britney on the mat. Alana moved back to give them room. The woman looked at the splint, and the sling, and the scarf, and the fingers, and then up at Alana with her eyebrows raised.
"Who did this?"
"I did."
"Nice," said the paramedic, sounding surprised. "Really nice. You can stay right there, hon. We'll swap it for ours in the rig." She turned to Britney. "Hi, sweetie. We're going to take a little ride. Is your mom here?"
Britney's mother was there. She had come down from the stands through the gate at the end, a small frightened woman in a Colonials sweatshirt, and she knelt on the mat and took Britney's good hand, and Britney started crying again. The paramedics lifted her onto the stretcher. As they wheeled her past, Britney turned her head on the pillow and looked up at Alana, who was kneeling at the edge of the mats with her bad leg stretched out in front of her and her hands in her lap.