The Sunday roast was dry, but we ate it anyway. My mother was talking about her garden in Summerville, the way the hydrangeas were taking to the damp, and my four-year-old daughter, Chloe, was busy pushing peas around her plate.

Everything felt normal until she looked up. Chloe looked right at my mother and said, “Nana, the man at school takes my shoes off and tickles my feet.”

My mother’s fork hit the china with a sharp clink. She didn’t look at me. She just stared at the child. I felt my own stomach flip. It was a cold, hard sensation, like swallowing a marble. I told myself it was just preschool games. Kids talk about weird stuff all the time. But my mother’s eyes were locked on mine, and she wasn’t smiling. She was waiting for me to say something.

I didn’t sleep that night. I kept hearing the words echoing against the drywall. Tickles. Feet. Shoes. It sounds innocent enough if you try hard to make it sound that way, but it didn’t feel innocent. It felt like a warning light. I spent the dark hours staring at the ceiling, trying to remember if Chloe had ever mentioned a man before. She hadn’t. She only ever talked about Mrs. Gable, her lead teacher, and the other kids.

Monday morning, I was the first person in the parking lot of the Little Sprouts Academy. I walked straight into the director’s office. I didn’t wait for a greeting. “Who is the helper?” I asked. My voice was tighter than I meant it to be. The director, a woman named Arlene who always smelled like peppermint, looked startled. She started listing names, her fingers dancing over a keyboard, clicking away at records.

“All male staff are background-checked,” Arlene said. She was trying to be soothing, but it felt like she was reading from a script.

“I don’t care about the staff,” I said. I was leaning over her desk, watching the screen. “Who is the volunteer? The one in the classroom on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

Arlene tapped a key and pulled up a file. Her brow furrowed. “That would be Mr. Vance. He’s a parent volunteer. He has a niece in the toddler group.”

I made her print the form. I didn’t want a screen; I wanted paper I could hold. As the printer hummed, I felt my heart hammering against my ribs. I snatched the paper before it was even fully out of the tray. The name was there: Elias Vance. But the address was the kicker. 1422 Elm Street, Apartment 4B.