Chương 2
Vincent touched the back of her head.
Then he looked at the broken cookie.
His expression went flat again.
Vanessa had her phone out.
Her fingers shook badly enough that she entered the wrong passcode twice.
Daniel saw it and reached toward her.
She jerked away.
“Don’t.”
“Vanessa.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“You told him to mind his business.”
“So that makes this okay?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You stood there.”
Daniel’s face changed.
Vanessa pointed at Lily.
“You stood there when she was screaming too.”
The words landed harder than Vincent’s fist had.
Daniel looked at his daughter.
She had heard.
Her face remained hidden against Vincent.
Daniel rubbed his mouth with one hand.
“I didn’t think you were actually hurting her.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“Actually?”
“I mean—”
“No, finish that.”
Daniel could not.
From the neighboring yard came the faint mechanical whine of a lawn trimmer.
Someone farther down the street laughed.
A dog barked twice.
The ridiculous normality of the afternoon seemed to make the patio uglier.
Vincent carried Lily toward the gate.
Daniel stepped away from the damaged table.
“Where are you taking her?”
Vincent stopped.
Lily tightened her arms around him.
That small movement did what shouting could not.
Daniel saw fear in his own daughter before Vincent answered.
“Somewhere she can stop crying.”
“You can’t just take her.”
“She wants to come with me.”
“She’s four.”
“Yes.”
Vincent looked at the towel on the ground.
“That’s what everybody here seems to have forgotten.”
Vanessa finally managed to unlock her phone.
“I’m serious, Vincent.”
“So am I.”
Daniel moved toward the gate but stopped when Lily raised her head.
“Daddy?”
He froze.
There was hope in that one word, and fear underneath it, and he discovered with sickening clarity that he did not know which one he deserved.
“Hey, bug.”
His voice cracked.
Lily stared at him.
“Why didn’t you help me?”
Daniel opened his mouth.
Nothing came.
Vanessa turned away.
Vincent’s hand settled gently between Lily’s shoulder blades.
Daniel looked down at the broken cookie.
“I should have.”
Lily waited.
Daniel swallowed.
“I should have helped you.”
She rested her cheek against Vincent again.
It was not forgiveness.
Daniel seemed to understand that.
Vanessa held the phone at her side now.
“You’re making this into something it wasn’t.”
Daniel looked at her.
The defensive certainty in her voice sounded familiar because he had been using the same certainty ten minutes earlier.
“She was afraid of you.”
“She was having a tantrum.”
“She flinched before you hit her.”
Vanessa went still.
Vincent watched Daniel.
Daniel stared at the towel.
That detail had been sitting in his mind since the instant before the blow, waiting for him to admit what it meant.
“How many times?” he asked.
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed.
“Oh, don’t you dare.”
“How many times have you done that?”
“It was a towel.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“You were standing right here.”
“This time.”
Vanessa’s face lost color.
Lily shifted in Vincent’s arms.
“I want Grandma’s pancakes.”
Vincent looked down at her.
“At four in the afternoon?”
She nodded solemnly.
“They’re better at four.”
For the first time, warmth reached his eyes.
“That so?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll have to investigate.”
Daniel almost smiled, but the expression collapsed before it formed.
Vincent opened the side gate.
“Dad.”
Vincent looked back.
Daniel stood between his wife and his daughter, though the distance suddenly seemed much larger than the patio.
“I’ll come over tonight.”
“No.”
Daniel flinched.
“Tomorrow, then.”
Vincent studied him.
“When you know whether you’re coming to explain yourself or defend yourself.”
Daniel nodded once.
Vanessa stared at him as if that nod were another betrayal.
Vincent carried Lily through the gate.
Her crying had stopped, but every few steps a leftover shudder moved through her small body.
At the driveway she lifted her head and looked back toward the house.
Daniel was still standing there.
The rolled towel lay near his shoe.
He bent, picked it up, and slowly unrolled it.
It became an ordinary kitchen towel again.
That somehow made him feel worse.
He placed it on the counter beside Vincent’s forgotten black jacket and stared through the open gate long after his father and daughter were gone.
Daniel stayed there until the refrigerator compressor beneath the outdoor counter clicked off and left the patio unnaturally quiet.
Vanessa walked inside without another word.
He heard a cabinet door slam, then another, followed by the sharp scrape of something being dragged across the kitchen counter.
Daniel picked up his father’s jacket.
It was heavier than it looked, and one inside pocket sagged with the familiar weight of Vincent’s reading glasses and an old leather wallet he refused to replace.
Daniel nearly called after him.
Instead he carried the jacket inside and found Vanessa pressing a bag of frozen peas against her cheek.
“You asked how many times,” she said.
Daniel laid the jacket over the back of a dining chair.
“I did.”
“And you asked it in front of him.”
“He was leaving.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
Vanessa lowered the peas.
A red handprint was developing along the left side of her face, and Daniel hated seeing it because it made two truths compete inside him.
His father had assaulted his wife.
His wife had struck his daughter.
One truth did not cancel the other, no matter how desperately he wanted arithmetic that simple.
“You made me look like some kind of child abuser.”
“I didn’t make you look like anything.”
“Oh, please.”
“How many times, Vanessa?”
She dropped the peas onto the counter.
“Twice.”
Daniel said nothing.
“Maybe three.”
His eyes moved to hers.
She folded her arms.
“She reaches for things constantly, Daniel.”
“She’s four.”
“Exactly, which is when you teach boundaries.”
“With a towel?”
“It’s cloth.”
“So is a belt.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“That’s disgusting.”
“What?”
“Comparing me to somebody who beats children.”
“I’m asking what happened.”
May you like
“No, you’re not.”
She picked up the peas again but did not return them to her face.
