Chương 5
Claire had spent years minimizing it because fighting every small battle had seemed exhausting.
Now Lily stood barefoot in the grass beside an open kennel.
Claire crouched lower.
“Baby, where are your shoes?”
Lily looked down at her feet as if noticing them for the first time.
“Grandma took them.”
“Why?”
“So I couldn’t run.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
Daniel whispered, “Jesus.”
Melina lifted her chin.
“She was trying to get into the road.”
Claire stood.
Her anger was no longer hot.
It had become organized.
She unlocked her phone and dialed.
Daniel saw the screen.
“Claire.”
She put the phone to her ear.
“I’m calling.”
“Please wait.”
“No.”
“The police are going to hear a four-year-old talking about a woman with your face and think she’s unstable.”
Claire looked at him.
“They’re going to hear that your mother locked her in a kennel.”
“And then what?”
“Then they document it.”
“You think that’s all that happens?”
“I don’t care.”
“You will.”
Something in his tone stopped her thumb over the call button.
“What aren’t you saying?”
Daniel breathed out through his nose.
Ethan looked at him.
“Say it now.”
Daniel ignored Ethan.
He looked only at Claire.
“If they come, someone is going to ask why Lily was trying to leave.”
Claire waited.
“They’re going to ask what she was afraid of.”
“She told us.”
“She told us a woman who looks exactly like you is in the house.”
Claire’s stomach tightened again.
Daniel continued.
“And when they ask where that idea came from, Sarah’s name comes up.”
“Fine.”
“No, not fine.”
“Why?”
“Because Sarah filed something.”
Claire stared at him.
“What?”
“A report.”
“With who?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Child protective services.”
For a moment Claire could not place the words inside her own life.
“What did she report?”
Daniel looked at Lily.
Claire moved between them.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“What did she report?”
“She said Lily might be unsafe here.”
Claire almost laughed.
“She was right.”
“That isn’t the whole report.”
“Then give me the whole thing.”
Daniel bent to pick up nothing from the grass, stopped himself, and stood again.
“She said you may have been medically harmed.”
Claire’s expression changed before she could stop it.
Ethan frowned.
“Harmed how?”
Daniel rubbed his mouth.
“She thinks someone interfered with Claire’s medication.”
The lawn seemed very still.
Claire heard a car pass beyond the hedges.
Then another.
The ordinary sound made the sentence feel worse.
“Who?”
Daniel did not answer.
Claire’s hand closed around the phone.
“Who did Sarah accuse?”
Melina spoke first.
“She accused Daniel.”
Claire looked at her husband.
He shook his head immediately.
“It’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“You just spent ten minutes telling me our daughter says you made me sick.”
“Because Sarah put that in her head.”
“Did Sarah?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
Daniel stopped.
Claire saw it.
He had answered too quickly.
“How do you know what Sarah told Lily?”
“Because she admitted talking to her.”
“What exactly did she say?”
“She said she asked Lily questions.”
“What questions?”
“She wouldn’t tell me all of them.”
Claire stared at him.
“You met with my estranged sister in a coffee shop about a report accusing you of poisoning me, and you didn’t tell me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
The phrase struck Claire almost physically.
“Don’t.”
“It’s true.”
“Do not use that sentence.”
“You were barely eating.”
“I was sick.”
“You were terrified.”
“I was still capable of knowing what was happening in my own family.”
“I didn’t know what was happening.”
“Then why did you keep it from me?”
Daniel opened his mouth and closed it.
Claire nodded slowly.
“That’s what I thought.”
Lily tugged on Claire’s coat.
“Mommy, I’m cold.”
The late-afternoon sun was still warm, but Lily was shivering.
Claire took off her coat and wrapped it around her daughter.
The garment nearly swallowed her.
Ethan crouched.
“Can I carry you inside, kiddo?”
Lily instantly grabbed Claire’s leg.
Ethan backed away.
“Okay.”
Claire put a hand on Lily’s hair.
“No one touches you unless you say yes.”
Melina muttered, “This is absurd.”
Claire turned her head.
“What part?”
“You are reinforcing everything.”
“What exactly am I reinforcing?”
“Fear.”
Claire took a step toward her.
“You should be afraid of what happens next.”
Melina’s nostrils flared.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The drama.”
Claire almost answered.
Then she stopped.
Melina had always done that too.
Reduced anger to temperament.
Reduced boundaries to drama.
Reduced cruelty to misunderstanding.
Claire looked at Lily instead.
“Did Grandma hurt you?”
Lily’s eyes went to Melina.
Claire touched her cheek gently.
“You can tell me.”
Lily whispered, “She grabbed.”
“Where?”
Lily touched her upper arm.
Claire lifted the sleeve of the pale-pink dress.
Finger-shaped bruises darkened the skin.
Daniel made a sound behind her.
Claire did not look at him.
“Anything else?”
Lily shook her head.
Then stopped.
“Daddy broke the lamp.”
Daniel stiffened.
Claire looked back.
“What lamp?”
“The one in the hall.”
Daniel rubbed the back of his neck.
“I knocked it over.”
Lily shook her head.
“You threw it.”
“I was angry.”
“At who?”
Daniel looked at Claire.
“Sarah.”
Claire’s voice became quiet.
“Sarah was here when that happened?”
“Yes.”
“You said she came here once.”
“She did.”
“And you threw a lamp while she was here.”
“It wasn’t at her.”
“That distinction is doing a lot of work.”
Ethan stood.
“What was the argument about?”
Daniel looked toward the hedge.
“Her accusations.”
“What accusations specifically?”
Daniel said nothing.
Claire stepped closer.
“Was it about my medication?”
“Yes.”
“What medication?”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Your anti-nausea tablets.”
Claire felt a small jolt.
Those tablets had gone missing twice.
The first time she blamed herself.
The second time Daniel drove to the pharmacy after midnight because she had been vomiting for hours.
She could still picture him kneeling beside the bathroom floor with a wet washcloth.
“You said the pharmacy shorted us.”
“That’s what I believed.”
May you like
“Did Sarah say otherwise?”
“She said she counted them.”
