Chương 2
Robert hesitated.
“Emma, I don’t think—”
“Give it to me.”
He placed it in her palm.
It was almost weightless.
She closed her fingers around it.
Daniel said, “Please don’t do anything with that until I explain.”
Emma looked at the red mirror.
“What would I do with it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.”
A resort employee in a yellow polo approached cautiously from the snack counter. He looked about nineteen.
“Is everything okay over here?”
Robert turned away, dragging one hand over his gray hair.
Daniel said, “Family disagreement.”
The employee looked at the red mark forming on Daniel’s cheek.
His eyes moved to Robert.
“Do you need security?”
“No,” Emma said.
All three men looked at her.
“I need a box.”
The employee blinked.
“A box?”
“Or a plastic food container. Something with a lid.”
He nodded quickly.
“Yeah. Sure.”
“And a pen.”
“Okay.”
When he hurried away, Daniel said, “What are you doing?”
“Making sure you don’t touch this.”
“I’m not going to touch it.”
“You just tried.”
“I was trying to stop Dad from breaking it.”
“Why?”
Daniel looked toward the path where the man in the green polo had disappeared.
Emma saw it again.
The reflex.
Not fear of the object.
Fear of what was on it.
One of the twins began to fuss.
Emma adjusted the towel around him, leaned down, and pressed her lips to the side of his head. He smelled faintly of milk and the fragrance-free detergent she had started buying when they came home from the hospital.
Behind her, somebody jumped into a pool.
A whistle blew.
The world had the indecency to keep going.
Robert crouched beside Emma’s chair.
His voice changed when he spoke to her.
“Sweetheart, I found it because the bag fell.”
Daniel said, “Dad—”
Robert ignored him.
“I went to get the pacifier pouch. The whole bag slid off the chair. That thing hit the concrete. The back popped out a little. I saw wires.”
Emma looked at Daniel.
He said, “It’s a prototype.”
Robert laughed again, but there was no humor in it.
“A prototype.”
“It is.”
“For what?”
Daniel did not answer.
The resort employee returned with a clear plastic container that normally held cut fruit and a black marker.
Emma placed the mirror, the loose backing, and the microSD card inside.
She snapped the lid closed.
On the top she wrote the date.
Then the time.
She checked her phone because she did not trust herself to remember whether it was 2:17 or 2:18.
It was 2:19.
Daniel watched her.
“You don’t need to do that.”
Emma capped the marker.
“I apparently do.”
She slipped the container into the zippered compartment of her own canvas tote, beneath a folded receiving blanket.
Daniel lowered himself into the chair across from her.
“Can I talk now?”
“No.”
“Emma.”
“No.”
The force of the second one startled her.
One twin made a small face in his sleep.
She waited until his forehead smoothed.
Then she said, “We’re leaving.”
Daniel looked toward the stroller.
“I’ll get the bags.”
“You’re not coming.”
His face changed.
“Come on.”
“Dad will drive.”
“Emma, you have both babies.”
“Yes.”
“You’re exhausted.”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t slept.”
“Yes.”
He leaned forward.
“You shouldn’t make a decision like this when you’re—”
She stared at him until he stopped.
When he did, she discovered she was shaking.
Not visibly, perhaps.
Inside.
Somewhere behind her ribs.
Daniel looked at her hands.
His voice softened.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“You never do.”
He sat back.
Robert said nothing.
That was unusual enough that Emma almost looked at him.
Daniel pressed his lips together.
“You think I was spying on you.”
“There was a hidden camera in a mirror you put in our babies’ bag.”
“Yes, but—”
“Stop saying yes before but.”
Daniel looked down.
A bead of water slid off his hair and darkened the table.
Emma stood carefully.
Robert reached for one baby.
She almost refused him.
Then her left shoulder gave a sharp ache, and she let him take the smaller twin, Noah.
The fact that practicality survived terror felt insulting.
She put Eli into the stroller, checked the brake, adjusted the shade, checked Noah in Robert’s arms, then checked Eli again.
Daniel stood a few feet away.
He looked like he wanted to help.
For once, he seemed to understand that helping would make things worse.
As Emma pushed the stroller away from the café, he said her name.
She kept walking.
“Emma.”
She stopped without turning.
“There was no live feed,” he said.
She closed her eyes.
The sentence entered her body slowly.
There was no live feed.
He had chosen those words because there had been some other kind.
Robert murmured, “Keep walking.”
Emma did.
They crossed the wet concrete toward the hotel wing. Children ran past in water shoes. A woman complained to her husband about sunscreen. Somewhere above the resort, a bucket emptied hundreds of gallons of water onto screaming families.
Emma had wanted to cancel the trip.
That thought arrived with such force that she nearly laughed.
Six weeks earlier she had delivered two boys after thirty-one hours of labor and an emergency C-section. The resort reservation had been made months before, part of a family weekend Daniel insisted would be wasted if they did not use it.
They would not go in the pools, he had promised.
They would get out of the house.
Fresh air would help.
His father could come.
They had adjoining rooms.
Emma could rest.
The pediatrician had not forbidden a short drive. The babies would stay shaded and away from crowds as much as possible. Daniel had said they needed one normal thing.
One normal thing.
That morning Emma had stood in their bedroom in underwear and a nursing bra while Daniel packed the diaper bag.
The red mirror had been on the dresser.
She remembered that now.
May you like
Not because it had seemed important.
Because she had asked why he was bringing it.
