Chương 2
“I told you what happened.”
“You told me your version.”
Evelyn gave a brittle laugh.
“She dropped the doll.”
Daniel said nothing.
Frank looked at him.
Daniel’s eyes shifted.
That was enough.
“You lied,” Frank said.
Evelyn’s mouth hardened.
“Oh, spare me your courtroom act.”
Frank stepped nearer.
She did not retreat.
Instead she slapped his chest with the flat of her hand.
“Get out.”
Frank caught her arm again.
Lily cried louder.
Everything that followed happened too quickly for anyone to improve it with judgment.
Evelyn jerked free and swung at Frank’s face.
His open hand struck her cheek first.
The crack stopped Lily’s crying for one stunned beat.
Evelyn recoiled, lost her footing against the edge of the stone path, and dropped backward onto the garden bench.
The bench rocked but remained upright.
Frank stared at his own hand.
He had meant to stop her.
He had also hit her.
There was no useful distinction in the silence afterward.
Daniel rushed him.
“You son of a bitch!”
Frank turned as Daniel threw himself forward.
Daniel’s fist caught Frank high on the shoulder.
Frank answered with one heavy right hand.
It landed against Daniel’s jaw.
Daniel’s momentum carried him backward.
His shoulder hit the wooden fence with a hollow bang, and he collapsed beside it, stunned and motionless.
“Danny!”
Evelyn pushed herself off the bench.
One bodyguard moved toward Daniel, crouched, and checked him.
“He’s breathing.”
Frank did not answer.
Lily had begun crying again.
Not for the doll now.
For everyone.
Frank looked at her and saw fear in a face that had expected rescue.
That hurt worse than Daniel’s punch.
He lowered his hands.
“Lily.”
She backed away.
The movement was tiny.
Frank saw it anyway.
He swallowed.
“Okay.”
He did not approach her.
Evelyn knelt beside Daniel.
“What did you do?”
Frank looked at the bodyguard.
“Call an ambulance.”
“I don’t need your damn ambulance,” Daniel muttered.
His eyes opened.
The bodyguard put a hand near his shoulder without touching him.
“Don’t stand yet.”
“I said don’t touch me.”
“Then stay sitting.”
Daniel leaned against the fence and spat into the grass.
There was no blood.
His expression was dazed and furious.
Frank took off his jacket.
His hands were shaking slightly.
He folded the jacket once and set it on the bench beside Evelyn.
No one commented on the absurd neatness of the gesture.
Lily sniffed.
“My baby.”
Frank followed her gaze.
The doll still lay in the mud.
He walked toward it.
His expensive shoes sank immediately.
Cold mud climbed over the soles.
He bent and picked up the doll by its little dress.
Mud ran from its hair.
Behind him, Evelyn was arguing with the bodyguard about the ambulance.
Daniel was insisting he could stand.
Lily was hiccupping between breaths.
The backyard had become noisier than it had been before Frank arrived.
Rescue, he discovered, had made almost everything worse.
He returned to the stone path.
The second bodyguard produced a folded white cloth from inside his coat.
Frank took it.
“Thanks, Marcus.”
He wiped the doll’s face first.
Then its arms.
The yellow synthetic hair remained streaked brown.
Lily watched every movement.
“This may need a bath,” Frank said.
Lily nodded solemnly through her tears.
“Soap?”
“Probably a lot of soap.”
Her mouth trembled.
“Her dress too?”
“Especially her dress.”
Lily took one hesitant step toward him.
Frank crouched and held out the doll.
She grabbed it with both arms.
Mud transferred instantly onto the front of her pink dress.
Evelyn made a sound of irritation.
Frank looked at her.
Evelyn stopped.
Lily pressed the doll against her chest anyway.
Frank waited before touching her.
“Can I pick you up?”
She nodded.
He lifted her carefully.
She curled against him, doll trapped between their bodies, her wet cheek resting against his white shirt.
The first distant siren became audible beyond the houses.
Frank looked at Daniel sitting beneath the fence, then at Evelyn beside him.
Nobody had won anything.
Lily’s fingers tightened around the doll.
Frank rubbed her back once.
“She picks up toys,” he said quietly, “not cruelty.”
Evelyn stared at him.
Frank expected anger.
Instead, for the first time that afternoon, something uncertain crossed her face.
The siren grew louder.
Lily buried her face beneath Frank’s chin.
“Grandpa?”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t hit anymore.”
Frank closed his eyes.
The words stayed there between them, heavier than any accusation an adult could have made.
“No,” he said.
He held her a little closer.
“I won’t.”
The ambulance arrived three minutes later, and Frank was still holding Lily when the paramedics came through the side gate.
Daniel had managed to get himself onto the garden bench by then, though he kept one hand pressed against his jaw and insisted he was fine before anyone had asked him.
Evelyn stood beside him with her arms folded tightly across her chest.
She had a red mark along one cheek, but she refused to let the younger paramedic examine it.
“I don’t need medical attention,” she said.
“Ma’am, I still have to ask.”
“You asked.”
The paramedic glanced at Frank, then at Daniel, then at the two men in black suits standing near the gate.
His expression suggested he had already decided that whatever story belonged to the backyard would be longer than his shift allowed.
Lily remained wrapped around Frank’s neck.
Her muddy doll rested between them.
The clean white shirt beneath Frank’s open collar now had a brown handprint where Lily had clutched him.
Marcus stood a few feet away making a phone call in a low voice.
The other bodyguard, Leonard, had moved toward the driveway to guide the second paramedic around the house.
Frank watched Daniel answer orientation questions with growing irritation.
“What day is it?”
“Saturday.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“My sister’s backyard.”
“Any nausea?”
“No.”
“Blurred vision?”
“No.”
“Headache?”
“Only from listening to everybody.”
The paramedic did not laugh.
Frank almost did.
May you like
The impulse embarrassed him.
He looked down at Lily instead.
