Chương 2
“That’s not your problem. Whatever Grandma feels is Grandma’s problem.”
“Are you mad at me?”
Natalie almost dropped her.
She set Sophie carefully on her feet instead.
“Why would I be mad at you?”
The elevator arrived. Nobody got out.
Inside, mirrored walls showed Natalie six versions of herself: hair disordered, lipstick partly gone, ivory dress smeared at one knee from the floor. Sophie stood beside her with silver adhesive residue around one wrist.
“I spilled the drink,” Sophie said.
“What drink?”
“The red one.”
“On Grandma?”
Sophie shook her head. “On the table.”
Natalie crouched.
“What happened?”
The elevator doors closed.
Sophie stared at the numbers above them.
“I wanted to find you.”
“Okay.”
“Grandma said you were working.”
“I was giving the speech.”
“I know.”
“You were supposed to be with Ms. Maribel.”
“She went to get my sweater.”
Natalie waited.
Sophie picked at a loose thread on her dress.
“Grandma told me to sit.”
“And you didn’t?”
“I did at first.”
The elevator descended.
“I wanted to see the stingrays.”
Natalie said nothing.
“She said no. Then Mr. Larkin asked Grandma something, so I went over by the glass. I didn’t touch it. I promise.”
“You’re allowed to touch aquarium glass.”
“Grandma says fingerprints look common.”
Natalie stared at her.
It was exactly the kind of sentence Eleanor would say.
Not to a child, Natalie would once have insisted.
Apparently to a child.
“What happened after that?”
“I came back and bumped the table.”
“The drink spilled.”
Sophie nodded.
“And then?”
“Grandma got mad.”
“Did she tape you?”
Another pause.
“No.”
Natalie’s stomach tightened.
“Who did?”
“A man.”
“What man?”
“He had the black shirt like the people fixing things.”
“Did Grandma tell him to?”
Sophie’s eyes dropped.
“I don’t know.”
The elevator doors opened into the underground garage.
Natalie stayed crouched.
“Sophie.”
“Grandma said, ‘Do something so she stays put.’ Then she said she was done being embarrassed by a child.”
Natalie swallowed.
“Did the man say anything?”
“He said, ‘Mrs. Whitmore, seriously?’”
Natalie almost smiled from pure disbelief.
“And?”
“Grandma said, ‘I’m not asking twice.’”
The parking garage smelled of concrete and exhaust.
Sophie rubbed her wrists.
Natalie stood.
“Did he hurt you?”
“The tape did.”
“Anywhere else?”
“No.”
“Did anyone hit you?”
“No.”
“Did anyone threaten you?”
Sophie’s face changed.
Natalie wished immediately that she had not asked so many questions. She was frightening her daughter all over again.
“Never mind. We’re done talking about it for now.”
“Grandma said if I kept acting like Daddy, you’d lose your job.”
Natalie’s hand froze on her purse.
“What?”
But Sophie had already curled inward.
Natalie stopped herself.
“Okay.”
She opened the car.
“Get in, sweetheart.”
Sophie climbed into the back seat and automatically reached for the booster belt.
Natalie stood beside the open door staring at the roof of the garage.
Her father had once told her that anger made Eleanor efficient. Natalie had always believed that was one of his small, defeated jokes.
Now she wondered how many warnings she had mistaken for jokes because the alternative would have required her to do something.
She buckled Sophie in.
Then she sat behind the steering wheel and discovered she could not remember where she had put the keys.
They were in her hand.
She laughed once.
It sounded terrible.
“Mommy?”
“Sorry.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Natalie started the car.
Her phone had forty-three notifications.
She turned it face down.
By the time they reached the emergency pediatric clinic, there were seventy-eight.
The doctor was younger than Natalie expected and wore purple sneakers beneath navy scrubs. Her name was Dr. Farah Patel. She examined Sophie’s wrists, photographed the redness with Natalie’s permission, checked circulation, and asked Sophie simple questions in a voice that never became falsely cheerful.
“Can I have a popsicle?” Sophie asked after fifteen minutes.
Dr. Patel smiled. “That is the most medically reasonable request I’ve heard tonight.”
Sophie chose orange.
While a nurse found one, Dr. Patel asked Natalie to step into the hall.
“You did the right thing bringing her in.”
Natalie nodded too quickly.
“Is she hurt?”
“Superficial skin irritation. No sign of nerve injury. Circulation is fine.”
Natalie leaned against the wall.
The relief was so physical it made her knees weak.
“But,” Dr. Patel said gently, “I need to tell you that because of what Sophie described, I’m required to make a report.”
Natalie looked up.
“To who?”
“Child protective services.”
“My mother taped her to a chair at a gala.”
“I understand.”
“No, I mean—I’m not arguing. I just…”
She pressed her fingers to her forehead.
“Do it.”
Dr. Patel waited.
Natalie lowered her hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“I slapped my mother.”
The doctor’s expression remained neutral.
“In front of about two hundred people.”
“All right.”
“I’m not proud of that.”
“I’m treating Sophie.”
“I know. I just thought you should know before someone makes it sound like I came in here pretending to be…”
Natalie stopped.
Pretending to be a good mother.
Dr. Patel did not finish the sentence for her.
“That may be relevant if someone asks you later,” she said. “Tonight, what matters medically is that Sophie is safe and that we document what happened to her.”
Natalie nodded.
Through the door she could hear Sophie asking the nurse whether sharks slept.
For several seconds Natalie stared at the cheap landscape print on the hallway wall.
A farmhouse.
A tree.
A white fence.
Nothing in the picture looked expensive enough to require obedience.
When she returned to the room, Sophie had orange around her mouth.
“You hate orange popsicles,” Natalie said.
“I changed.”
“Since Tuesday?”
“Yes.”
“Fast year.”
Sophie almost smiled.
Natalie sat beside her.
Her phone buzzed again.
She ignored it.
The call came from Eleanor at 11:14.
Natalie watched the name appear on the screen.
MOM.
Sophie saw it too.
“Are you answering?”
“No.”
The phone stopped.
Then started again.
Natalie declined it.
May you like
A text appeared.
You need to call me before this becomes worse.
