Chương 8
Administrative leave sounded like something that happened to senators and police chiefs.
Not women who cleaned bottle warmers.
She used the first week to take her father to a cardiology appointment he had postponed twice.
He complained the entire way.
The waiting room television played a home-renovation show without sound.
Her father folded and unfolded a pharmacy receipt.
“You miss the baby.”
Emma looked at him.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You check your phone every ten minutes.”
“That could mean anything.”
“It means baby.”
She looked at the television.
A woman in an enormous hat was choosing marble countertops.
Emma hated the sight of marble.
“I miss him.”
Her father nodded.
“You go back?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I don’t.”
He folded the receipt again.
“Not knowing gets boring.”
Emma looked at him.
“That’s very philosophical for a man who destroyed a sink.”
“I fixed sink.”
“The superintendent replaced the faucet.”
“Because he lacks confidence.”
Emma smiled.
Quiet moments had always felt like wasted time to Emma.
After the foyer, they became proof that time was still moving.
Noah learned to clap.
Her father complained about parking.
A neighbor’s dog barked every morning at six twenty.
The world did not organize itself around the worst thing that had happened.
Two weeks after the incident, Emma met with an investigator from the agency.
Then with a county child-welfare worker.
Then with a prosecutor’s office victim-witness coordinator who was careful not to promise what would happen.
Emma repeated the same story until she began to hate the sound of her own voice.
Each person asked slightly different questions.
How hard was the shove?
Where exactly was Victoria standing?
Were the bassinet brakes engaged?
Had Emma ever seen Victoria drink alcohol while caring for Noah?
Had Emma discussed Victoria with other staff?
Did Victoria have any reason to believe Emma disliked her?
That last question stayed with Emma.
Because the answer was yes.
Emma had disliked Victoria sometimes.
She had resented her.
She had rolled her eyes in the laundry room after being asked to remake a bed because the decorative pillows were in the wrong order.
She had once texted a friend that Victoria could detect a fingerprint on glass from space.
None of those things made her statement untrue.
But Emma understood how easily ordinary dislike could be shaped into motive.
She called Daniel.
“Did I ever complain about her in writing to anyone in the house?”
Daniel was silent.
“That is a very specific question.”
“I need an answer.”
“Probably.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“How bad?”
“Mrs. Alvarez still has a text where you wrote, and I quote, ‘If she asks me to iron a linen napkin again, I will become a criminal.’”
Emma stared at the ceiling.
“That was a joke.”
“I know.”
“Would everyone know?”
“No.”
“Great.”
Daniel paused.
“There’s also one about throwing her silver napkin rings into the ocean.”
Emma groaned.
“Why does Mrs. Alvarez save everything?”
“She has fourteen thousand unread emails.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No one understands Mrs. Alvarez.”
Emma sat down.
“Could Victoria use those?”
“I’m not your lawyer.”
“I know.”
“But yes.”
Emma rubbed her forehead.
“This is ridiculous.”
“This is real life.”
She hated when he was right.
A few days later, Victoria returned home.
Emma learned through Alexander.
He called at seven in the evening.
“She won’t be staying here.”
Emma stood at her father’s stove, stirring tomato sauce.
“Where?”
“With her sister.”
“Is Noah okay?”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
Alexander laughed softly.
It was the first time she had heard him laugh since the incident.
“No.”
“Fair.”
“She asked about you.”
Emma stopped stirring.
“What did she ask?”
“If you hated her.”
Emma stared at the red sauce bubbling in the pot.
“What did you say?”
“That I didn’t know.”
Emma lowered the heat.
“I don’t.”
Alexander was silent.
“I thought I did,” she said. “For a few days.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“That makes two of us.”
Emma’s father entered, stole a piece of bread, and mouthed Who?
Emma waved him away.
Alexander said, “She remembers everything.”
Emma did not answer.
“She isn’t claiming it didn’t happen.”
That surprised her.
“She admits pushing it?”
“She says she remembers wanting the crying to stop. She says she remembers thinking if the bassinet rolled away from her, she wouldn’t have to hear him.”
Emma gripped the wooden spoon.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.”
“Did she know the stairs were there?”
“Yes.”
“Then—”
“I know.”
Emma shut her mouth.
Alexander’s breathing was audible through the phone.
“She says when you caught it, she knew what she had done.”
Emma thought of Victoria’s face.
Cold.
Annoyed.
Maybe she had misread it.
Maybe not.
A person could understand an action and still defend against it five seconds later.
“She slapped me after that.”
“I know.”
“She lied when you came in.”
“I know.”
“I’m not saying that because I need you to agree with me.”
“I know.”
Emma put the spoon down.
“I’m saying treatment doesn’t erase the choices she made after.”
Alexander was quiet.
Then he said, “I know.”
The repetition sounded different that time.
More painful.
A month passed.
The criminal investigation continued without the dramatic speed Emma had expected from television. Attorneys spoke. Reports were requested. Doctors did not hand over private information because someone rich asked. The child-welfare investigation had its own process.
Victoria was allowed no unsupervised contact with Noah while arrangements were reviewed.
Alexander moved into a smaller guest house on the estate with Noah and two rotating caregivers.
The mansion remained staffed but half-empty.
Mrs. Alvarez said it felt haunted.
Daniel said it had always felt haunted.
Emma did not go back.
She accepted temporary work with an older couple in Bethesda who owned two elderly spaniels and argued every morning about whether oatmeal was a soup.
The pay was lower.
The house had laminate floors.
Emma loved it.
May you like
Still, she missed Noah.
Alexander sent one photograph each Friday.
