Stan Murua-Wilson’s daughter, Isobel, is a former classmate of Bobby Small’s. Mr Murua-Wilson agreed to talk to me via Skype in May 2012.

Goes without saying that all of us parents at Roberto Hernandes were super-shocked when we heard about Lori. We just couldn’t believe something like that could happen to someone we knew. Not that Lori and I were close or anything. My wife, Ana, isn’t jealous, but she had an issue with Lori’s behaviour at a couple of PTA meetings. Ana said she was flirty, called her a grade-A flake. I wouldn’t have gone that far. Lori was okay. Most of the kids at Roberto Hernandes are Hispanic–but it’s got this integration and diversity ethos thing going on–and Lori was never like, hey, look at me, sending my kid to a public school so that he can get real with the kids from the neighbourhood. A few of the white parents whose kids go to Magnet schools are like that, you know, smug. And Lori could easily have sent Bobby to one of the good yeshiva schools in the neighbourhood. I reckon part of Ana’s problem with Lori was Bobby… he wasn’t the easiest kid, if you want to know the truth.

I’m an English major, was planning on teaching before Isobel came along, and Bobby’s behaviour–pre-crash, I mean–and Lori’s attitude to it reminded me of that short story by Shirley Jackson, “Charles.” You know it? About this boy called Laurie who comes home every day from kindergarten with tales about this evil kid called Charles, who’s been acting up in class, bullying the other kids and killing the class hamster and stuff. Laurie’s parents are full of schadenfreude, and say things like, ‘Why don’t Charles’s parents discipline the boy?’ Course, when they eventually go to the school for a parent-teacher meeting, they find out that there’s no kid in the class called Charles–the bad kid is actually their own son.

A couple of parents tried to speak to Lori about Bobby, but it never seemed to go in. Ana freaked out last year when Isobel came home and said that Bobby had tried to bite her. Ana was all for going in to see the principal, but I talked her out of it. Knew it would blow over, or maybe Lori would come to her senses and dose him up with Ritalin or whatever; that kid had serious ADD.

Can I say he was a different child after the crash? There’s a lot of talk about this, what with all that shit the prophecy nut jobs are saying, but because Bobby’s grandmother Lillian decided to put him into the home schooling programme–I guess because of all the attention he was getting from the media and those freaks–it’s hard for me to say. But there was one time I came across him, round about late March. The weather wasn’t great, but Isobel had been on my back about going to the park all day, and in the end I gave in.

When we got there, Isobel was like, ‘Look, Daddy, there’s Bobby.’ And before I could stop her, she ran right over to him. He was wearing a baseball cap and glasses, so I didn’t recognise him straight off, but Isobel saw through that straight away. Bobby was with an elderly woman who introduced herself as Betsy, Lillian’s neighbour. She said that Lillian’s husband, Reuben, was having a bad day, so she’d offered to take Bobby out for a while. Betsy was a real talker!

‘You want to play with me, Bobby?’ Isobel asked. She’s a good little girl. Bobby nodded and held out his hand. Together they went over to the swings. I was watching them closely, giving half an ear to Betsy. You could tell she thought it was weird that I stayed home and looked after Isobel while Ana went out to work. ‘Never would have happened in my day,’ she kept saying. Lots of my buddies in the area are the same. Doesn’t make you less of a man or any of that shit. We don’t get bored. We have a jogging club; meet at the rec centre for racquetball, that kind of thing.

Isobel said something to Bobby and he laughed. I started to relax. There they were, heads together, chattering away. They seemed to be having a great time.

‘He doesn’t see enough of other children,’ Betsy was going on. ‘I don’t blame Lillian, she has her hands full.’

On our way home, I asked Isobel what she and Bobby had talked about. I was worried that maybe Bobby had been telling her about the crash and his mother dying. I hadn’t broached the death issue yet with Isobel. She had a hamster that was getting more and more sluggish by the day, but I was planning to just replace it without her knowing. I’m a coward like that. Ana’s different. ‘Death is a fact of life.’ But you don’t want kids to grow up too quickly, do you?

‘I was telling him about the lady,’ she said. I knew exactly what she meant. Since she was three, Isobel had suffered from night terrors. A specific hallucination where she’d see a terrifying image of a hunched old woman whirling in front of her eyes. Part of the problem is that my mother-in-law fills Isobel’s head with all kinds of stories, superstitious stuff like El Chupacabra and all kinds of other bullshit. Ana and I used to fight about that a lot.

Isobel’s condition had gotten so bad last year that I’d shelled out for a psychologist. She said that Isobel would eventually get over it, and I prayed this would be the case.

‘Bobby is like the lady,’ Isobel said. I asked her what she meant, but all she said was, ‘He just is.’ Freaked me out a bit.

This doesn’t mean anything, but… after she saw Bobby that day, Isobel hasn’t woken up screaming once or complained about ‘the lady’ visiting her. Weeks later I asked her again what she meant–that thing about Bobby being like the lady–but she acted like she didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.