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You do not know it at first. You are home grading spelling papers when your phone rings from an unknown number. You answer, expecting a parent. Instead, you hear a woman crying.
“Mr. Martinez?”
“Yes?”
“This is Elena Rios. Valentina’s mother.”
You sit upright. Her voice is small, breaking around every word. “They came to my apartment. They asked questions. They scared my husband. Why are you doing this to us?”
You close your eyes. “Mrs. Rios, I’m not trying to hurt your family. I’m trying to make sure Valentina is safe.”
“She is safe,” Elena says too quickly.
There is noise in the background. A man’s voice, low and angry. Elena’s breathing changes.
You speak gently. “Are you safe?”
Silence.
“Elena?”
The line clicks dead.
You stare at the phone for a long time. Then you call the CPS number back and report the call.
The next day, Valentina does not come to school.
You check the attendance sheet twice, as if her name might appear by force of hope. It does not. During morning announcements, Karen’s voice crackles through the speaker, bright and artificial, congratulating the school on a successful canned food drive. You stand at the front of your classroom while twenty-two children recite the pledge, and one empty space near the back feels louder than all of them.
By noon, you walk to the office. “Has anyone called about Valentina?”
The secretary, Mrs. Barnes, looks at Karen’s closed door, then lowers her voice. “Her mother said she’s sick.”
“With what?”
Mrs. Barnes hesitates. She has worked at Roosevelt for thirty years and has seen every kind of pain a child can bring through a school door. Her eyes are kind, tired, and worried. “She didn’t say.”
You turn to leave, but Mrs. Barnes whispers, “Daniel.”
You stop.