Chương 3
Then the elevator doors closed, and Rachel had thirteen seconds of silence before Emma whispered through the oxygen mask, “Is Daddy mad at me?”
Rachel looked down.
The question went through her harder than the sight of Emma beneath the water.
“No.”
Emma’s eyes searched hers.
“Because I knocked.”
“No, baby.”
“I wasn’t supposed to go in there.”
Rachel shifted her weight.
The elevator seemed to take forever.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But Daddy said grown-ups were talking.”
“When?”
Emma’s eyes moved toward Luis.
Rachel immediately hated herself for asking.
Not here.
Not like this.
She kissed the top of Emma’s wet head.
“You don’t have to tell me anything right now.”
Emma breathed against the mask.
A moment later she said, “I wanted my flip-flops.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Of course.
Not evidence.
Not betrayal.
Not adultery.
Flip-flops.
One pink, one purple, because Emma had lost the matching purple one at summer camp and refused to let Rachel throw away the surviving shoe.
“I know,” Rachel said.
“I left them by Daddy.”
“I know.”
“I thought he had them.”
“You’re okay.”
“I’m cold.”
“I know.”
Luis reached into a cabinet inside the ambulance once they were downstairs and produced a silver emergency blanket. Emma frowned at it.
“It’s crinkly.”
“Very,” he said.
She allowed him to wrap it around the white towel.
Rachel climbed in after her.
The doors began to close.
A hand appeared between them.
Daniel.
Officer Ortega was behind him.
“She’s going to NewYork-Presbyterian,” Daniel said. His breath was visible in the cool ambulance air. “Text me.”
Rachel did not answer.
His eyes moved to Emma.
“Daddy loves you.”
Emma stared at him.
Then she looked down.
The doors shut.
For most of the ride, Rachel listened to the monitor.
She had never understood why hospital machines sounded so indifferent.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
As if the body were a metronome.
Emma asked whether her stuffed rabbit was at home.
Rachel said yes.
“On my bed?”
“Probably.”
“You said you were washing him.”
“I forgot.”
“You always forget.”
Rachel laughed.
This time it was a real laugh, weak and startled.
“Apparently.”
Emma leaned against her.
The ordinary complaint saved Rachel for about ten seconds.
Then the phone in her pocket vibrated.
Daniel.
She ignored it.
Again.
Daniel.
Again.
Seth.
Again.
Unknown number.
Then a text from their neighbor Amy: IS EMMA OKAY??? SOMEONE SAID SHE FELL IN THE POOL.
Fell.
Rachel stared at that word.
Someone had already begun simplifying the night.
She locked the phone.
At the hospital, Emma was examined, monitored, X-rayed, listened to, questioned gently, and given a pair of enormous non-slip socks printed with blue dots. She hated the socks. She loved the apple juice.
Rachel sat beside the bed in wet clothes until a nurse named Pamela found her a gray sweatshirt from a charity cabinet.
“You want dry pants too?”
Rachel looked down at her jeans.
“Yes.”
Pamela brought sweatpants with ST. JOSEPH’S 5K printed down one leg, though Rachel had no idea which St. Joseph’s.
She changed in a bathroom while Emma watched cartoons through an open door.
Under the fluorescent light, Rachel finally saw herself.
Wet hair had escaped her low bun and dried in crooked strands against her face. There was a red mark along her forearm from where she had scraped the pool edge. Her eyes looked older than they had that morning.
She washed her hands.
Blue birthday-cake icing came out from under her fingernail.
She began to cry.
Not loudly.
Not beautifully.
She leaned over the sink and cried with her mouth shut because Emma was fifteen feet away.
Then someone knocked.
“Mommy?”
Rachel turned on the faucet.
“I’m coming.”
She dried her face with paper towels that left little white pieces on her cheeks.
Emma noticed.
“You have toilet paper on you.”
“It’s a new look.”
“That’s not toilet paper.”
“Then I’m doing great.”
Emma smiled.
It lasted only a second, but Rachel kept it.
Daniel arrived at the hospital just after midnight.
He was not in handcuffs.
Rachel learned this because Pamela appeared at the doorway and said, “There’s a man asking for Emma.”
Rachel did not ask which man.
“No.”
Pamela’s expression stayed neutral.
“He says he’s her father.”
“He is.”
“Do you want me to get security?”
Rachel looked at Emma.
She had finally fallen asleep with the cartoon still playing soundlessly. Her hair had dried in dark ropes across the pillow. The white pool towel was folded on a chair. Rachel had insisted on keeping it.
Evidence, maybe.
Or because throwing it into hospital laundry felt like surrendering something she had wrapped around her daughter with her own hands.
“Did he come alone?”
“I think so.”
Rachel stood.
“I’ll talk to him outside.”
Daniel was at the end of the hall beside a vending machine.
He had put on a dry jacket over the same navy polo. The silver watch remained on his wrist.
Rachel wondered why that annoyed her.
Perhaps because the watch suggested continuity.
Everything else had broken and Daniel still knew what time it was.
“How is she?”
“Stable.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means they’re watching her lungs and oxygen levels.”
“Can I see her?”
“No.”
“Rachel.”
“She’s sleeping.”
“I can sit.”
“No.”
His face tightened.
For half a second she saw anger.
Then it disappeared.
“I talked to the police.”
“I assumed.”
“They asked questions. I answered them.”
“Congratulations.”
“They took statements from everyone.”
“Good.”
“They took my phone.”
Rachel looked at him.
That mattered.
He realized too late that he should not have said it.
“Why?”
“Standard procedure.”
“Is it?”
“They asked for it. I gave it to them.”
“And Claire’s?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were standing next to her.”
“At the time.”
The qualifier was pure Daniel.
Rachel folded her arms.
He stared toward Emma’s room.
“I made a terrible mistake.”
The sentence hung between them.
Rachel waited.
He rubbed his cheek, almost unconsciously.
“I should have opened the door.”
May you like
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know she was going back toward the pool.”
