Chương 9
“You told me she did.”
“Did you believe me?”
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
Emma looked down at the sketchbook.
“You believed Grandma.”
“No.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I thought maybe you were confused.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I know that now.”
Emma’s eyes filled.
“How?”
Daniel had no answer.
She wiped her face angrily with her sleeve.
“How do you know now?”
He looked helplessly at me.
I said nothing.
This was not mine to rescue him from.
“Because you’re older now,” he said finally.
Emma stared at him in disbelief.
“So I had to get older before you believed me?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Marisol shifted slightly in her chair.
Not intervening.
Just there.
Daniel leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“No.”
His voice was quieter.
“That was a terrible answer.”
Emma did not respond.
He tried again.
“You told me the truth then.”
I watched his face.
The sentence cost him.
“You told me what happened, and I didn’t want it to be true.”
Emma’s mouth tightened.
“So you said I was confused.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Daniel stared at his hands.
“Because if Grandma had really done that, then I had to do something about it.”
The room became very still.
“And I didn’t.”
Emma’s pencil rolled off the sketchbook and onto the carpet.
Daniel bent automatically to pick it up, then stopped himself.
Emma retrieved it.
“Why didn’t you?”
He looked toward the kitchen doorway.
Rachel had reappeared without pretending she had not been listening.
Daniel rubbed his thumb over the edge of his wedding ring.
“When I was a kid, Grandma got angry a lot.”
I felt something inside me tighten.
He had almost never talked about Patricia that way.
“She would punish me for things that didn’t make much sense.”
Emma watched him carefully.
Daniel continued.
“If I complained, she said I was dramatic.”
His voice had gone flat.
“If I told my dad, he usually said it was easier if I just did what she wanted.”
Rachel crossed her arms.
Daniel looked at Emma.
“I got very good at making things smaller.”
Emma frowned.
“What?”
“Bad things.”
He swallowed.
“I learned to say they weren’t that bad.”
Emma stared at him for several seconds.
Then she asked, “Did that make them not bad?”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“No.”
“Then why did you do it to me?”
The question seemed to remove whatever argument he had prepared.
He looked down.
“I don’t know how to answer that without making excuses.”
Emma looked at me.
I could see her trying to decide whether that counted as an answer.
It did not.
Neither did she demand another one.
She opened her sketchbook and drew a hard black line across the blank page.
Daniel watched.
“I should have protected you.”
Emma kept drawing.
“Yes.”
He flinched.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
“I’m sorry.”
She made another line.
“I don’t forgive you yet.”
Daniel nodded.
“You don’t have to.”
I looked at him.
That was the second good decision.
Maybe the third.
It did not erase anything.
It did not even begin to.
But it existed.
Emma drew quietly for another minute.
Then she looked up.
“Are you going to make me see Grandma?”
“No.”
The answer came fast.
Emma’s expression sharpened.
“Even if she cries?”
Daniel looked toward me again.
This time he seemed to understand why the question mattered.
“Even if she cries.”
“Even if she says I’m mean?”
“Yes.”
“Even if she says Mom is making me say no?”
Daniel’s face changed.
“Did she say that?”
Marisol leaned forward.
“Daniel.”
He stopped.
Emma nodded anyway.
“When she came yesterday.”
“She didn’t talk to you yesterday,” I said.
Emma looked at me.
“She texted my tablet.”
The room shifted.
I felt my stomach drop.
“What?”
“Before Aunt Rachel took it away because it was almost dead.”
Rachel’s face went blank.
“I didn’t know.”
Emma slid off the couch.
“My tablet is upstairs.”
She returned with it less than a minute later.
The battery showed nine percent.
I opened the messaging app with her permission.
There were six messages from Patricia.
The first was sent thirty-eight minutes before she arrived at Rachel’s house.
Sweetheart, Grandma loves you.
The second said, I am sorry everyone is making this so scary.
Then, Your mom is very upset right now and sometimes adults make children feel more upset too.
Daniel stood.
Marisol raised one hand.
“Stay where you are.”
He sat back down.
I kept reading.
I never wanted to hurt you.
You know that.
Please tell your mom you want to come home so this can stop.
The final message made my hands shake.
Don’t say things about Grandma that can’t be taken back.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Emma stood beside me.
“I didn’t answer.”
“I see that.”
“I was going to.”
“What were you going to say?”
“That she was lying.”
Daniel covered his mouth with one hand.
I looked at him.
“Did you know she texted Emma?”
“No.”
“Did you give her the number for the tablet?”
“No.”
His answer sounded genuine.
Rachel said, “She was added to the family account last Christmas.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Of course she had access.
Not secret access.
Ordinary access.
The kind no one worried about until it became something else.
Marisol asked me not to delete anything.
She photographed the screen, noted the timestamps, and asked Emma whether Patricia had messaged before.
Emma shrugged.
“Sometimes.”
“About this?”
“No.”
“About rules?”
Emma looked uncertain.
“Like what?”
Marisol asked.
“Like if Mom says no.”
My breath caught.
Emma scrolled.
There were older messages.
Most were harmless.
Birthday hearts.
Pictures of dogs.
Reminders about church lunches Emma never attended.
Then we found one from three months earlier.
Your mother worries too much.
You can always ask Grandma when she says no.
Another from January read, Some things are easier if we don’t bother Mom with them.
Daniel stood again.
May you like
This time Marisol did not stop him.
He walked toward the front window and pressed both hands against the sill.
