Chương 4
“She’ll likely be here several more hours anyway.”
“Then let’s go.”
Dana studied me.
“You don’t have to prove you care by moving fast.”
“No.”
I looked at my daughter through the curtain again.
“But I’ve already spent too long moving slowly.”
My apartment smelled faintly of the frozen pizza I had burned two nights earlier.
Dana noticed the smoke detector before anything else.
She checked the kitchen, bathroom, balcony lock, medicine cabinet, and the small second bedroom where Lily slept during my weekends.
The room contained a twin bed, two stuffed animals, a lamp shaped like a moon, and three unopened moving boxes I had pushed against the wall.
Dana pointed to them.
“What’s in those?”
“Books, mostly.”
“You know?”
“I packed them.”
She opened one after asking permission.
Books.
Another held winter clothes and an old desk fan.
The third contained pieces of my former life that I had not wanted to sort.
Framed photographs.
Tax records.
A Christmas stocking with my name stitched across it.
A wedding album.
Dana glanced inside and closed the flaps.
“You have food?”
I opened the refrigerator.
Milk.
Eggs.
Mustard.
Half a rotisserie chicken.
A jar of pickles.
Three cans of sparkling water.
Dana stared.
“I cook badly.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“There’s food.”
“There’s ingredients.”
“Is this a custody assessment or a cooking show?”
For the first time, she almost smiled.
“Buy groceries tomorrow.”
She stepped into Lily’s room again.
A drawing was taped above the bed.
It showed three stick figures beneath an enormous purple sun.
One was Lily.
One was me.
The third was a dog.
I did not own a dog.
Lily had been lobbying.
Dana touched the edge of the paper without removing it.
“How often does she stay here?”
“Every other weekend and Wednesdays.”
“Any overnight visits outside the schedule?”
“No.”
“Any history of domestic violence?”
“No.”
“Police calls?”
“No.”
“Substance use?”
“No.”
“Firearms?”
“No.”
“Any reason Taylor might claim Lily is unsafe with you?”
That question took longer.
“She might say I lose my temper.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Dana waited.
“I shout sometimes.”
“At Lily?”
“Twice that I can remember.”
“What happened?”
I leaned against the doorway.
“The first time she ran into the parking lot behind a grocery store.”
“And the second?”
“She drew on my laptop with permanent marker.”
Dana raised an eyebrow.
“I apologized for the laptop thing.”
“To the laptop?”
“To Lily.”
A corner of her mouth moved.
“Anything physical?”
“Never.”
“Threats?”
“No.”
“What ended the marriage?”
I looked at the boxes.
“That’s a bigger question.”
“I have time.”
I sat on the edge of Lily’s bed.
“Taylor and I got good at avoiding each other.”
“That usually has a beginning.”
“It probably had twenty beginnings.”
I rubbed my thumb over a scratch in the bed frame.
“She stopped trusting my judgment.”
“About what?”
“Money, parenting, her mother.”
“Evelyn specifically?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I looked up.
Because suddenly the answer no longer felt like old marital resentment.
Evelyn had entered our house without knocking.
She changed plans Taylor and I had made for Lily.
She criticized what Lily ate, how she spoke, how much television she watched, which friends she saw.
When I objected, Taylor said Evelyn was helping us.
When I pushed harder, Taylor said I was threatened by strong women.
Eventually I stopped pushing because every argument ended with Taylor crying and Evelyn appearing the next morning with muffins.
“I thought Evelyn was controlling.”
“Did you ever suspect abuse?”
“No.”
The answer tasted terrible.
Dana nodded without judgment.
That made it worse.
My phone buzzed.
Taylor.
I stared at her name.
Dana said, “You can answer.”
I almost declined the call.
Then I remembered the conflicting timelines.
I put it on speaker.
“Hello?”
Taylor was crying.
“Where are you?”
“At my apartment.”
“Why?”
“CPS is checking it.”
There was a pause.
Then she whispered, “Are they taking Lily away from me?”
I looked at Dana.
She gave no reaction.
“Taylor, did you know?”
Another pause.
“Know what?”
“Don’t do that.”
“I don’t know what you’re asking.”
“The freezer.”
Her breathing changed.
“I knew Mom had scared her once.”
“Scared her how?”
“She made Lily sit inside it for a few seconds.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“You told her not to do it anymore.”
“Yes.”
“So you knew.”
“It wasn’t like tonight.”
“How do you know what tonight was like?”
Silence.
Dana’s eyes sharpened.
I stood.
“Taylor?”
“I just mean if Lily was really trapped—”
“You said you hadn’t spoken to Evelyn.”
“I haven’t.”
“Then how do you know tonight was different?”
“I don’t.”
“You just said it was.”
“I’m upset, Mark.”
“Where were you between eight-fifteen and nine-fifty?”
“At Walgreens.”
“For an hour and a half?”
“There was a line.”
“At ten o’clock on Thursday?”
“Why are you interrogating me?”
“Because our daughter nearly froze in a box.”
Taylor started crying harder.
“I didn’t put her there.”
“I didn’t ask that.”
“You think I did?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“I would never hurt Lily.”
I believed that she believed it.
That was the problem.
People could build whole lives around definitions narrow enough to keep themselves innocent.
“You left her with Evelyn after knowing Evelyn had put her in that freezer before.”
“I told Mom it was unacceptable.”
“And then you kept leaving them alone together.”
“She apologized.”
“To who?”
Taylor went quiet.
“To me.”
The answer was so small that for a moment I thought I had misheard it.
“Not to Lily?”
“She didn’t want to make it bigger.”
My anger went strangely cold.
“Taylor, where were you tonight?”
“I told you.”
“Send me the Walgreens receipt.”
“What?”
“The receipt.”
“I don’t have to prove where I went to you.”
“No.”
I looked at Dana.
“But you may have to prove it to somebody.”
Taylor inhaled sharply.
Then the call ended.
For several seconds, neither Dana nor I spoke.
She finally said, “Do you normally ask for receipts?”
“No.”
May you like
“Why tonight?”
“Because Taylor never shops without using our rewards account.”
