Chương 5
“When did Grandma say that?” he asked.
Rebecca looked at him sharply.
He stopped.
Lily closed her eyes again. “At the red drinks.”
The cooler. The party.
Or another time. Children mixed sequence, place, and cause. Rebecca would not turn her daughter into a witness before anyone trained to speak with her arrived.
She and James did not ask another question.
By midmorning, Lily could walk a few steps without vomiting. The neurologist recommended rest, close observation, and follow-up. A child advocacy center would arrange a forensic interview when appropriate, though at her age the information might be limited.
The CPS investigator arrived before discharge.
Her name was Marisol Reyes. She wore black slacks, flat shoes, and an expression that suggested she had learned to let people dislike her without taking it personally.
She interviewed Rebecca and James separately.
Rebecca told the truth about the party. She told the truth about the broken wrist. She admitted advising Patricia to maintain a single account after Patricia changed her story. She described Gerald’s temper, his habit of slamming doors, the way family gatherings reorganized around avoiding irritation.
“Has he ever struck you?” Marisol asked.
“No.”
“Your sister?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Did you suspect it?”
Rebecca looked at the blank wall behind Marisol.
“When we were children, Vanessa was the one who challenged him. Doors were sometimes closed. She had bruises, but she played sports.”
“Did you ask?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she said they were from volleyball.”
“Did you believe her?”
“I chose to.”
Marisol wrote something down.
The scratch of pen against paper made Rebecca want to reach across the table and read it upside down.
“Why did you continue contact between your father and Lily?”
“Because he had never threatened her. He was impatient, but he had been affectionate with her. We did not leave them alone.”
“You considered supervision necessary?”
“We supervised everyone with her. She’s three.”
Marisol looked up.
Rebecca heard how the answer sounded.
“Yes,” she said. “I was more watchful around him.”
“Did your husband know why?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because saying it out loud would have required me to admit I believed there was something to watch.”
After the interview, Marisol walked through their house. She opened the refrigerator, checked Lily’s bedroom, photographed the locks, and asked where medications were stored. The process felt both reasonable and humiliating.
Their home was orderly except for the green blanket with frogs bunched on the couch and a basket of unfolded laundry near the stairs. Rebecca resisted the urge to apologize for the laundry.
Marisol noticed a framed photograph on the mantel from the previous Christmas. Gerald held Lily on his shoulders. Patricia stood beside them. Everyone was smiling.
“Recent?” she asked.
“Seven months.”
“Did anything concerning happen that day?”
“No.”
Marisol studied the photograph another second.
“Families often have good days with unsafe people,” she said. “That’s why this gets confusing.”
Rebecca did not answer.
The safety plan required no contact between Lily and Gerald, no contact with Patricia unless approved and supervised, and notice to the agency if either came to the house. Rebecca signed. James signed.
After Marisol left, James took the Christmas photograph from the mantel and placed it face down in a drawer.
“You don’t have to hide every picture,” Rebecca said.
“I don’t want to look at him.”
“It’s also a picture of Lily.”
“Then we’ll crop it.”
Rebecca almost argued.
She stopped herself.
Their first night home, Lily refused to sleep in her own bed. James moved the mattress from the guest room onto the floor beside theirs because he was afraid he might roll onto her if they put her between them. At two, she woke screaming and tried to crawl under Rebecca’s body.
For the next hour, Rebecca sat against the headboard while Lily slept in her lap.
James lay awake on the floor mattress.
“You should sleep,” Rebecca whispered.
“So should you.”
“I can’t.”
“Neither can I.”
A truck passed outside. Its headlights moved across the ceiling and vanished.
Rebecca traced the edge of Lily’s yellow bow, which Lily had insisted on wearing again after the hospital even though the ponytail had come loose.
“I’m going to give the messages to the detective,” she said.
“Good.”
“And I’m going to disclose the old incident.”
“You already told CPS.”
“I mean everything. The texts from Patricia, if I still have them. Emails. Whatever exists.”
James was quiet.
“That could become public,” he said.
“I know.”
“It could affect your work.”
“I know.”
“Your license?”
“Possibly, depending on how it’s interpreted.”
He turned his head toward her. “Are you telling me because you want me to stop you?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because you should know what it costs.”
“It already cost something.”
Rebecca looked down at Lily.
“Yes.”
James closed his eyes.
The next afternoon Detective Aaron Bell met them at the child advocacy center. He was younger than Rebecca expected, with a wedding band too loose on his finger and a habit of tapping his pen against his notebook before asking difficult questions.
He did not appear impressed by her résumé.
That was a relief.
“We have several witness statements,” he said. “They differ.”
“Of course they do,” Rebecca replied.
James glanced at her.
Bell continued. “Three people say they saw Gerald raise the belt. Two say they saw it make contact. Four say their view was blocked. Your mother says Lily slipped on spilled water while Gerald was holding the belt but did not swing it.”
“She said Lily deserved it,” James said.
“We have witnesses to that.”
“Aunt Colleen recorded some of it,” Rebecca said.
“She began recording after the fall. We have your father saying Lily slipped and you asking about the belt. Useful, but it doesn’t show the strike.”
“What about the physical evidence?”
Bell tapped the pen.
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“The belt has a decorative raised edge. The physician documented a faint linear mark on Lily’s upper back that became more visible several hours later.”
Rebecca’s stomach contracted.
