Chapter 134 : Crisis

Chapter 134 : Crisis
Three months later, Rowan received a call from Emma’s school.

“Mrs. Vance, we need you to come in. There’s been an incident.”

Rowan’s stomach dropped. “Is Emma hurt?”

“No. She’s fine, but she needs to talk to the principal. It’s serious.”

Rowan excused herself from work and headed to the school. Emma was the easy child. The one who never made trouble. What could she have done?

The principal’s office was intimidating, like a courtroom. Emma sat on a chair, her face red and blotchy from crying. The principal, Mrs. Davidson, looked sour.

“Thank you for coming, Mrs. Vance. Emma is accused of cheating on her math test.”

“What? Emma doesn’t cheat.”

“The answers on her test are identical to another student’s. Same wrong answers in the same order.”

Rowan stared at Emma. “Did you cheat?”

“No! I swear I didn’t!”

“Then how can your test be exactly like this one?” Mrs. Davidson held up the other test. It was a perfect match.

“I don’t know. Did we study together? Maybe we both just think alike?”

“Emma, the other student sits next to you. She says you were looking at her paper while you worked.”

Emma’s face crumpled. “I didn’t mean to. I was just stuck on a problem and I looked over and I saw her answer and then I couldn’t look away.”

“So you did copy.”

“I didn’t mean to! I was just checking. I didn’t mean to copy!”

Mrs. Davidson’s expression softened. “Emma, I believe you didn’t set out to cheat. But that doesn’t change what happened. You used someone else’s work.”

“What happens now?” Rowan asked.

“Zero on the test. It puts her grade dangerously low. And she gets a note in her file.”

Emma began to sob. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never do anything like this.”

“I know, sweetheart. But this is what has to happen.”

Emma was quiet the rest of the ride home. Rowan let her stew, not knowing what to say. Emma was nine. She made mistakes. It was part of growing up.

“I’m not mad,” Rowan said as they pulled into their driveway. “I’m disappointed. But I’m not mad.”

“That’s worse.”

“Why?”

“Because mad goes away. Disappointed lingers.”

“You’re right. So what are we going to do about this?”

“I don’t know. Accept the zero? Try harder?”

“That’s a start. But I think you also owe your classmate an apology.”

“But she tattled on me!”

“She tattled on you because you tattled on her. She had every right to report cheating.”

Emma slumped in her seat. “This sucks.”

“I know, baby. But this is how we learn. We fail. And then we fix it.”

Lily was waiting for her at home. “What happened? Mrs. Williams said Emma got in trouble.”

“Emma made a mistake at school. She’s taking care of it.”

Emma flew into her room and slammed the door.

“That bad?” Lily asked.

“She cheated on a test. Unintentionally, but still.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s bad.”

Asher tried to talk to Emma later that night. She wouldn’t come out of her room.

“Give her space,” Rowan said. “She’s got a lot going on.”

But at dinner, Emma’s seat remained empty. Rowan packed her a plate and brought it to her bedroom door.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Eat anyway. You need fuel for wallowing.”

Emma almost smiled. Almost.

“Everyone messes up, Emma. Even you.”

“But I’m the good kid. The one who doesn’t get in trouble.”

“You’re still the good kid. The good kids sometimes mess up.”

“And Lily never makes mistakes like this.”

“She’s made plenty of mistakes. Just different ones, but plenty.”

“Really?”

“Really. Oliver will make mistakes one day. And I make mistakes every day.”

“Like what?”

“Like thinking I have to be perfect to be a good mother. Like thinking I can’t ever fail. Like forgetting that sometimes it’s just as important to teach my kids how to fail as it is to teach them how to succeed.”

Emma picked at her dinner. “I really didn’t mean to cheat.”

“I know. But just because you didn’t mean to, that doesn’t make it not happen. You still have to take responsibility.”

“How do I do that?”

“You apologize. You accept the consequence. You learn from it. And you don’t do it again.”

“That’s a lot of steps.”

“Being human is hard.”

The next day, Emma wrote her classmate an apology. Rowan took her to school early so Emma could deliver it in person.

“I’m sorry I copied your test,” Emma said, her voice shaking. “It was wrong. I won’t do it again.”

The girl, Madison, looked surprised. “Oh. Okay. Thanks for apologizing.”

“Are you still mad?”

“I wasn’t really mad. I was just—I worked hard on that test. It felt unfair that you could get the same grade without the same work.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. We’re still friends.”

Emma seemed lighter in the car ride home. “She’s not mad at me anymore.”

“That’s good. How do you feel?”

“Better. I still feel bad about the zero. But better.”

“Good. Now you just have to work on bringing your grade back up.”

“That’s going to be really hard.”

“Most important things are.”

Lily came to her door later that night. “Can I come in?”

“I guess.”

“I just wanted to tell you something about mistakes.”

“What?”

“When I was in foster care, I used to steal food from the kitchen. I was hungry, and scared, and I didn’t know how to ask for more. I got caught. They almost sent me back.”

“What’d you do?”

“I apologized. I told them why I did it. They kept me, but I had to work to regain their trust. It took me months.”

“That sounds hard.”

“It was. But it taught me that mistakes don’t define you. The way you handle them does.”

“So I’m not a bad person?”

“You’re the best person I know. You made a mistake. It doesn’t change who you are.”

Emma hugged her sister. “Thanks, Lily.”

“That’s what sisters are for.”

Later that night, Asher found Rowan on the terrace.

“Emma’s okay,” she reported.

“Good. You handled that well.”

“Did I? I still don’t know how I’m doing at this whole parenting thing.”

“We all feel that way. No one has it figured out.”

“Not even people who remember being parents?”

“Especially not them. At least you’re building this on purpose. You’re not running on autopilot.”

Rowan leaned into him. “Emma’s first real mistake. It feels like a big deal.”

“It is. She’s growing up. Making choices. Some of them are going to be the wrong ones.”

“And we have to let her. Even when we want to fix it.”

“Even more when we want to fix it.”

The two sat in companionable silence, and Rowan realized something. This was parenting. It wasn’t the beautiful moments or the big milestones. It was the messy middle. The mistakes and the apologies and the lessons learned.

Three years ago, she wouldn’t have known what to do. She would have panicked, over-corrected, made it worse.

Now she knew better. Not because she remembered how to parent from before. But because she’d learned the hard way, day by day, decision by decision.

This life she’d made wasn’t perfect.

But it was real.

And that was enough.