“Who reported it?” I ask, my voice thick. I clear my throat. “You said there was a report —”
“You know I can’t say,” she admonishes, gently. “There are policies in place to protect ethics reporters.”
“Was it a student?” I ask, barely hearing her. “Another professor? An outsider?”
She just shakes her head.
“Thalia, is there anything you’d like to tell me about this?” she asks again.
I’m silent. I can’t think of anything that won’t incriminate me, and if I’ve learned one thing about any legal process, it’s best to keep your mouth shut.
“The report alleges that this affair was mutual,” she says, slowly, giving me a look I don’t fully understand. “But, as I’m sure you know, the greater responsibility in these ethical entanglements would fall on the professor in question.”
I want to say you don’t understand. I want to say I kissed him first, this was all my fault, but I don’t.
“Were you coerced into this relationship?” she asks, softly. “If you were, that might significantly change the outcome of the investigation.”
“No,” I say, so forcefully that I sit forward in my chair.
Dr. Castellano just nods, business-like, then pushes the envelope across the desk.
“Your hearing is Thursday,” she says. “In the meantime, I’d encourage you to really think through the nature of this relationship and the power dynamics therein. I’d also encourage you not to have any contact before the hearing.”
I nod, numbly. I stand. I take the envelope from her desk, grab my bag, walk for her door.
“Thalia,” she calls, and I turn, still silent.
She’s sitting there, fingers laced together, an expression on her face I can’t quite place.
“If you need anything, don’t hesitate to reach out,” she says. “And please, think about what I said.”
I turn back to her door, open it, and leave.Chapter Forty-FourCalebMy chickens have come home to roost.
I’m standing in the hallway of the mathematics department, halfway between the mail room and my office. People are swirling around me, putting on coats and taking them off, wrapping and unwrapping scarves, and I’m standing in the middle of all that, stock still, thinking my chickens have come home to roost.
It’s something my father said sometimes, one of his little pieces of farm wisdom that I thought I’d nearly forgotten. He’d say it whenever the sins of our past caught up with us, like when I knocked over Daniel’s block tower four times in a row and he finally stomped into my room and broke the Lego submarine I’d spent hours putting together.
I read the letter again: an ethics report, alleging improper conduct with a student, a serious violation. A hearing Thursday. A weight settling onto my shoulders, my chest. Consequences unmentioned in the letter but I know what they are.
I’ve always known. Not the first time I kissed her, true. But I knew the second time and all subsequent times, and every single one of them I weighed the consequences of my actions against the feeling of her lips on mine. Every single time I found the consequences wanting.
And here they are, roosting. I can’t help but imagine them as chickens — enormous, heavy chickens — perching on my shoulders and arms and the top of my head until I’m virtually covered with chickens, nothing but hands holding a letter sticking out between the feathers.
“Caleb,” a voice calls, and I look up. The hallway’s empty, and I wonder how long I’ve been standing there, holding this letter, thinking a lot about chickens and not at all about how I’m going to deal with this.
“I just heard,” Oliver says, striding up to me. “Is that the letter? Can I see it?”
I hand it over, silently. His face is grim as he reads it once, twice, then hands it back.
“Come on,” he says, and walks for his office.
I follow, chickens all aflutter, folding the letter and putting it neatly back into its envelope, then closing the door behind myself.
“I can’t believe they’re taking this seriously,” he says, the instant we’re inside, folding his arms over his chest and gazing through his window. “It’s unconscionable how cutthroat this department has gotten. Do you have any idea who came up with this?”
I’m only half-listening to Oliver, the other half of my brain spinning wildly out of control, wondering if I should tell Thalia, wondering if I should tell anyone. Wondering if I can possibly convince the committee that she earned her A, that I don’t make a habit of dating students, that it’s only her. Only ever her.
“Came up with what?” I ask, not quite following.
“Who invented this improper conduct charge,” Oliver says, patiently. “It must be someone with friends on the committee, because otherwise I can’t imagine this sort of thing sticking with no evidence whatsoever —”
“It’s true,” I say.
Oliver freezes, mid-sentence, his mouth still open. He blinks twice. Shuts his mouth. Opens it.