Chapter 89
The children erupted into conversation, all talking at once as their stories were overlapping with each other—someone's pet hamster had escaped, someone else had won a spelling bee, Marcus and Maya had gotten in a fight over whose turn it was to feed the classroom fish. Dante listened to it all with the attention of someone who'd learned that children needed to be heard, needed to have their experiences validated, needed adults who would take their problems seriously even when those problems seemed trivial from an adult perspective.
They made their way through the neighborhood , Dante's route planned to minimize exposure while maximizing efficiency. First stop was Keisha's house, where her grandmother met them at the door with the kind of warm gratitude that made Dante feel g
