told the boys to go get their backpacks. While they were gone, I rinsed all the dishes, ground up the granola in the disposal and hid the empty waffle package in my own backpack to drop in a recycling can on the way to campus. Best not to leave any evidence. I hadn’t been a Chicago police detective all that long, but I knew that.
✳ ✳ ✳
We only lived three blocks from their school and made it in plenty of time, though avoiding the puddles from last night’s rain slowed us down some. Well, it slowed me down as I kept my hands on two backpacks, guiding the boys around the puddles instead of straight through as they loved to do. We got to the school with relatively dry shoes. Sam gave me a fist bump and his cheeky smile, then he ran up the stairs and disappeared inside. Mike looked around, probably to be sure none of his friends were there, and then he leaned in to me for a second for a real hug. Then he broke it off and also ran up the stairs. I still felt awful about scaring him. I just stood there for a minute, contemplating the door of the school.
“Kristin!”
I started out of my reverie and turned around. Jane was hustling across the greenspace that bisected the campus toward me. I waited for her.
“I’m so glad to catch you like this!” she said a little breathlessly. “I was going to call you this morning.” She paused, aware that parents and kids were milling around us in front of the school.
“Can we walk together some? I assume you’re heading for your office.”
“Yes, certainly, Jane.” I moved on down the sidewalk with her.
“Thanks for that information you gave me from Rev. Dunn,” I said. “We’re following up on it through campus police contacts.” I decided not to mention my own excursion into that hideous world and my nightmare.
She was silent and I glanced over at her. She looked very tired.
“Jane, how are you? I can only imagine how this turmoil on campus has been difficult for you.”
“Oh, I’m okay.” She hugged her arms over her raincoat. “I try not to own all the problems myself, but give people support to solve them together.”
That sounded good and certainly I had to try to learn to do that, I thought, but I could see from her self-supporting posture that she hadn’t been entirely successful in letting others carry their own burdens. Her body, at least, reflected the weight of this past week. And then I thought, “It’s only Wednesday.”
Jane turned and gave me a wry smile. I realized I’d said “It’s only Wednesday” aloud.
“Anyway, Kristin, what I wanted to talk to you about is that a coalition of student groups has gotten permission from the administration to hold a big demonstration this Sunday on campus. They’re calling it a ‘Rally Against Hate’ because of that awful noose, the hateful leaflets, and the horrible social media exchanges people are having because of all that. There is very bad feeling among the students and even some staff and faculty.”
I wasn’t surprised the campus was in an uproar. I’d seen that myself, but I was surprised the coalition had the okay to go ahead.
“The administration gave permission for a rally? This is the first I’ve heard of it. It’s not like them. Usually they try to minimize any conflict on campus and shove it out of sight.” I knew what I was talking about from bitter experience. In fact, I heard my bitterness in my own voice.
Jane put a thin hand on my arm for a second. She knew.
“There’s just too many groups going together on this for them to blow it off completely, and it is being well organized, I think.” She stopped, and I faced her. She continued, her voice very firm.
“I told the President that we’d have an even bigger mess on our hands if we didn’t let the students demonstrate peacefully.” So it was Jane who had made the case for the rally. Jane was a very determined person despite her quiet manner. No wonder the President had agreed. The face she was making right now would have fit in on Mount Rushmore.
“Well, good,” I replied. “I’m sure I’ll hear from the campus police about how we plan to help keep things peaceful during the rally. Where will it be held? On the Quad?”
“No, on the greenspace here.” Jane gestured to the central area adjacent to the sidewalk where we were walking. But it wasn’t an empty green space now. There was a traveling exhibit of outdoor sculpture right there. And the sculptures were huge. It was a fairly recent installation. I had been planning to take the kids to see it.
Jane saw me looking at the statues and chuckled.
“No. Not right there. Further to the West.” She pointed in that direction.
“That’s fairly close up on to the park there. I hope the city doesn’t have to get involved with permitting too.”
The City of Chicago had a permitting system that seemed to be modeled on a labyrinth. With a Minotaur. And no actual exit.
Jane shook her head.
“No, that wouldn’t work. We have to stay on campus.”
Then she stopped, and I stopped opposite her. The huge university chapel building was right in front of us. It was hardly a chapel, though, since it was the size and design of a medieval cathedral.
“Anyway, here’s what I wanted to ask you. The students would like to have Dr. Aduba Abubakar, your new colleague, speak at the rally.” She paused and cleared her throat. Jane normally didn’t dither.
“Anyway, they wanted me to ask you to ask him to speak.”
“Why not just ask him directly, Jane?” I asked bluntly.
“Well, nobody knows him, so they wanted you to ask because you do.” Jane was trying for a matter-of-fact voice, but I could tell she too thought they should just ask Aduba directly.
I held in my irritation. This wasn’t Jane’s fault. I thought for a minute.
“How about this? I’ll mention to him that a coalition of student groups wants him to speak at the rally and a representative will be in touch shortly. Do you know who will ask?”
“Ah, no. Not yet.”
Well, perhaps the organizing was not as organized as she was saying. But it had to be hard, and I needed to cut her some slack. Her job right now was impossible.
“I’ll just say ‘someone’ will be in touch and leave it at that, okay?”
“Yes, certainly. That will be a help. I’ll tell them. Thanks, Kristin. I’m glad I ran into you.”
“Me too. Good luck, Jane.” Good luck to all of us, I thought.
The shadow of the giant cathedral fell over Jane’s face as she turned toward her office.
“We’ll need more than luck,” she said, looking up at the stained glass window that loomed over us, some angels flitting around.
Well, if she was counting on divine assistance, I wasn’t confident we’d get any help. The problem of how God could be good and evil exist in this world
