It was 7:48 on a Monday morning when Cole Whitaker’s phone started vibrating across the scarred metal edge of his saw bench, and by the time he answered it, the day had already split cleanly into a before and an after.
Before, there had been cinnamon toast burning at the edges because Macy had been trying to solve a problem in her head while the bread browned in the toaster. Before, there had been the old familiar argument over whether a fourteen-year-old needed three sharpened pencils and a backup mechanical pencil to get through first period. Before, there had been the quiet domestic rhythm that Cole protected with the stubbornness of a man who knew how easily a home could become only a place where people slept.
After, there was the voice from the school office.
Calm. Trained. Careful.
