“So you used my living child to ease your guilt.”

He nodded.

“You don’t get to climb into my family,” I said quietly. “You don’t get to hand my child secrets and call it comfort.”

The officers promised a no-contact order. I demanded he be banned from school property and that security protocols change.

When Noah came back into the room, clutching a small plastic dinosaur the man had given him, I knelt in front of him.

“That man is not Ethan,” I said softly.

Noah’s lip trembled. “But he said—”