Chương 4
Christopher sat on the narrow bench, knees spread awkwardly because of his height.
His suit dripped onto the rubber floor.
For several minutes he said nothing.
Neither did Emma.
Parker checked the girl’s breathing twice and asked simple questions about dizziness, nausea, chest pain, and whether she had swallowed much water.
Emma answered most of them with shrugs.
Then Parker asked, “Do you remember falling in?”
Emma turned her head toward Christopher.
Parker noticed.
“You can tell me.”
Emma’s eyes stayed on her father.
“I didn’t fall.”
Christopher felt the ambulance tilt through a turn.
He reached for the rail beside him although he did not need it.
Parker’s voice stayed neutral.
“Okay.”
Emma swallowed.
“Juliette told me to get the flowers out.”
“What flowers?”
“The red ones.”
Christopher looked at the petals still caught in Emma’s wet hair.
Parker said, “The ones in the pool?”
Emma nodded.
“She said they were clogging something.”
Christopher’s chest tightened.
Juliette had ordered the petals that morning for the anniversary dinner.
Hundreds of them had been scattered over the pool by a florist.
He had complained privately that it looked theatrical.
Juliette had rolled her eyes and told him not everything had to be practical.
“Were you using a net?” Parker asked.
Emma shook her head.
“She said I could reach.”
Christopher closed his eyes for one second.
The near edge of the pool had a narrow coping ledge.
A child kneeling there might reach floating petals close to the side.
Or someone might tell herself she could.
Parker asked, “Then what happened?”
Emma pulled the blanket higher.
“She got mad.”
“Why?”
“I broke it.”
Christopher opened his eyes.
“Broke what, Em?”
“The pitcher.”
The ambulance suddenly felt too small.
“What pitcher?”
“The glass one.”
Emma looked embarrassed now, which was so horribly normal that Christopher wanted to tear something apart.
“I knocked it off the table.”
“Okay.”
“I said sorry.”
“I know.”
“She said it was from France.”
Christopher almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because Juliette owned a dozen things she described as being from France, as though the country itself had personally vouched for them.
Instead he said, “What happened after that?”
Emma stared at her covered knees.
Parker watched without interrupting.
“She told me to clean the flowers.”
“Then?”
“I was leaning.”
Christopher waited.
Emma’s lower lip moved.
“She pushed my back.”
Every muscle in Christopher’s body went rigid.
Parker said, “With her hand?”
Emma nodded.
“Did she say anything?”
“She said I was spoiled.”
Christopher looked at the ambulance wall.
A laminated instruction card had begun peeling at one corner.
He focused on that corner because looking at Emma seemed suddenly impossible.
Parker asked, “When you were in the water, could you swim?”
“I can swim.”
“I know.”
Emma’s voice became defensive.
“I’m good at swimming.”
Christopher turned back.
“You are.”
“She held my hand down.”
The words were quiet.
Christopher did not understand them at first.
“Who?”
Emma looked at him as if the answer should have been obvious.
“Juliette.”
Parker shifted slightly.
Christopher’s mouth went dry.
“Where?”
“On the edge.”
Emma demonstrated by extending her hand from beneath the blanket and pressing it downward against the stretcher rail.
“I grabbed here.”
Christopher saw Nina in his mind.
She was holding the edge.
Juliette standing over her.
Let go, Emma.
He had assumed the phrase meant Juliette was ordering his daughter to release the pool.
Now another possibility opened beneath him.
“What did she do to your hand?”
“She stepped on it.”
Christopher stopped breathing.
Emma immediately looked frightened by his face.
He forced air into his lungs.
“Did she step on your fingers?”
“Just here.”
Emma touched the back of her left hand.
There was a faint reddish mark near the knuckles.
Christopher had not noticed it.
Neither had the paramedics.
Parker leaned closer.
“May I see?”
Emma extended her hand.
Parker examined it carefully.
“Does that hurt?”
“A little.”
“Can you move your fingers?”
Emma did.
Christopher stared at the mark.
It could have come from anything.
The edge of the pool.
A collision underwater.
His own grip when he pulled her out.
He hated himself for needing that uncertainty.
He hated Juliette for making uncertainty necessary.
“Why didn’t you tell me outside?” he asked.
Emma looked away.
Christopher immediately regretted the question.
It had sounded accusing.
“I mean, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I thought you’d be mad.”
“At you?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“Because you told me to be nice to her.”
The sentence landed with more force than the slap he had given Juliette.
Christopher leaned back against the metal cabinet.
Two weeks earlier Emma had complained that Juliette was “being mean all the time.”
He had been answering emails at breakfast.
He had barely looked up.
He had told his daughter that Juliette was under stress from planning the fundraiser and that everyone needed to make an effort.
Be nice to her.
His own words.
A convenient adult sentence designed to end a child’s inconvenient complaint.
“What did she do before today?”
Emma’s eyes shifted toward Parker.
Parker said gently, “You can answer your dad.”
Emma picked at the edge of the blanket.
“Nothing.”
Christopher recognized the answer.
It was the same nothing Emma gave when she broke a rule or wanted a conversation to disappear.
“Em.”
“She doesn’t like me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She said when the baby comes, everything’s going to be different.”
Christopher went completely still.
Parker looked away, granting privacy too late.
Christopher stared at Emma.
“What baby?”
Emma’s forehead creased.
“Juliette’s.”
The ambulance continued toward the hospital.
Christopher heard the tires humming beneath them.
He heard Parker close a drawer.
He heard his daughter sniff once.
Juliette had said nothing to him about being pregnant.
Emma seemed to notice his expression.
“You know, right?”
Christopher reached for her hand.
This time he held it carefully.
“No,” he said.
Emma looked suddenly guilty.
May you like
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you.”
Christopher felt the first clean edge of fear cut through his anger.
