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tell her that my wife’s in a coma, but I promised from the beginning not to ever use that as an exemption or a victory.
    She looks at our shoes, and I look at her feet and realize I’m supposed to take off my shoes, something I hate to do. I remove my shoes and stand there in my black socks. One is a darker shade of black than the other. Scottie runs a few steps, then slides along the floor and snaps her gum. I want to tell her to stop chewing the gum. It looks insolent. Mrs. Higgins leads us to the living room, and I see a girl who must be Lani sitting cross-legged on the couch. She has a white-girl brown ’fro, bushy and soft, and an upturned nose that alludes to her nickname, Lani Piggins. You can tell she loves Scottie because her face brightens and she uncrosses her legs and scoots forward.
    I look at her mother, a thin version of what’s on the couch, which brings hope, and I see that Lani’s eyes are a beautiful blue, her skin white and smooth. In a few years she could be gorgeous, or not.
    “Scottie,” I say. “Do you have something you want to say to Lani?”
    “Sorry,” Scottie says.
    “It’s okay,” Lani says.
    “Great,” I say. “Well, it was nice meeting you both.”
    “Scottie,” Mrs. Higgins says. “The things you said were simply evil.”
    I look at my daughter, trying to convey a look that says Just go with it.
    “I don’t know what’s going on in your life that has led you to become such a nasty young girl.”
    “Hey now,” I say. “She apologized. Kids are mean. They’re mean to show other kids that they shouldn’t be messed with, right?”
    “She needs to learn to be the same person online as she is in real time,” Mrs. Higgins says.
    “I agree.”
    “She needs to know not to fight online. It’s one of the school’s rules.”
    “Do you understand that, Scottie?” I say. I get down on my knees so that I’m at eye level with her, something Esther said she learned from a show about militant nannies. “You have to speak to people to their face.”
    Scottie makes exaggerated nods, her chin craning to the sky, then coming down to her chest.
    “She doesn’t get it.” Mrs. Higgins wears an angry smile that I don’t like. “She’s going to keep doing it. I can tell.”
    “No,” I say. “It will be all right. It’s like the time Lani locked Scottie out of the house at her birthday party. It was a cruel thing to do, and you probably did it to show off, right?” I say to Lani.
    Lani nods, then catches herself and remains still.
    “Scottie sat out there the entire day,” I say.
    “I didn’t know about that,” Mrs. Higgins says.
    “You brought me cake,” Scottie says.
    “You brought her cake,” I repeat. “Perhaps Lani should be the one to apologize, as it seems this incident was the catalyst for all this…‘evil’ was the word you used.” You’re dealing with an attorney, lady. I can go on and on, even in mismatched socks.
    “I’m sorry,” Lani says.
    Mrs. Higgins stands with her arms drawn tightly across her chest, frustrated by how the world has turned, as Scottie says.
    I slap my thighs. “Good! Terrific. Lani, you should come over sometime. Come for a swim or a hike or something. Or scrapbook.”
    “Okay,” Lani says. Scottie looks at me and scowls, but I know she’ll be appreciative of it later. You need friends who make you feel totally superior. “Again, Mrs. Higgins and Lani, sorry for the anguish and the tears. I hope to see you both again on better terms.”
    Mrs. Higgins turns and walks back to the door.
    “SYL,” Scottie says.
    “SYL,” Lani says.
    See you later. I get it. We walk to the screen door and I look at Scottie, for clues, perhaps. Just when I think I’ve figured her out, she surprises me with something else. While we’ve dealt with the technicalities of this problem, the problem is still here. Scottie was cruel and I don’t understand it completely. I don’t know if it’s a symptom of girlhood or a symptom of