After years of learning at home, my 10-year-old son, who has Down syndrome, was finally given the chance to go to a regular school. He was happier than I’d seen him in years. But just five days after he started, I got a phone call from the principal that left me shaken.

About halfway home, he asked a question in a very small voice.

“Am I a bad guy now?”

“No,” Jonah and I said at the same time.

“The police came. Police come for bad guys.”

“Sometimes police come to help figure out what happened,” I said. “That’s all. Officer Lim was nice to you, wasn’t she?”

He thought about it. “She let me hold her notebook.”

“See? Bad guys don’t get to hold the notebook.”

He almost smiled. Then his face crumpled again.

“Everybody saw,” he whispered. “When they took me to the office. The whole class saw. Felix saw.”

I squeezed his hand and didn’t say anything, because there wasn’t anything to say that would fix that. Some things you just have to hold together until they hurt less.

That night, I sat on the edge of his bed.

“Milo. Nobody is mad at you. I just need to understand. Can you tell me about the club? Just a little?”