Chương 3
I smelled tomato soup in his hair.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I put both hands around the back of his head.
“No.”
“I should’ve called sooner.”
“No, sweetheart.”
“He said you were busy.”
“I was.”
His body stiffened.
I pulled back just enough to see his face.
“But I was never too busy for you.”
His lower lip moved.
“He said you’d be upset if I made you come home.”
Mrs. Patel looked away.
I crouched in front of my son.
“Did Brandon say that?”
Liam nodded.
Then he reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a folded piece of paper softened by sweat and handling.
“I wrote down what he told me because I kept forgetting.”
I unfolded it.
There were four lines in Liam’s uneven handwriting.
Lock back door.
Don’t answer strangers.
Tyler might come.
Do not bother Mom unless emergency.
Underneath those words, in smaller letters, Liam had added one sentence of his own.
I don’t know what counts as emergency.
I stared at the sentence until the letters blurred.
Mrs. Patel put one hand over her mouth and turned toward the kitchen.
Liam watched my face carefully, as if my reaction might finally tell him whether he had chosen correctly.
I folded the paper once along the crease he had already made.
“Running out of cereal counts.”
He blinked.
“So does being scared.”
His eyes dropped to the carpet.
“So does being lonely.”
That made his chin tremble.
“And if you ever have to wonder whether something is an emergency, you call me anyway.”
He nodded without looking up.
I pulled him against me again and felt how light he seemed.
It was probably exhaustion playing tricks on me, but I could feel every ridge of his shoulder blades beneath the thin cotton shirt.
Mrs. Patel brought me a glass of water I did not remember asking for.
Her husband, Sanjay, stood near the hallway with his arms folded.
He was normally a cheerful man who complained about the Browns as though the team had personally betrayed his family.
That morning he did not make a joke.
“I went over after the police called,” he said.
I looked at him.
“To your house.”
“Was the door locked?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get in?”
“Officer had Liam’s key.”
He hesitated.
“There was food.”
The qualification in his voice told me everything before he continued.
“Not much a child could prepare safely.”
I sat on the edge of the couch.
“Tell me.”
“Frozen chicken, vegetables, eggs, some leftovers that had gone bad.”
He rubbed the heel of his hand against his jaw.
“There were protein bars in Brandon’s office.”
Liam spoke into my shoulder.
“He said those were his.”
I closed my eyes.
Mrs. Patel muttered something in Gujarati.
I did not need a translation.
“Did you eat them anyway?”
I asked.
“One.”
“Good.”
“I was really hungry.”
“You never have to ask permission to eat food in your own house.”
He leaned back enough to study me.
Even at eight, children can detect when adults suddenly rewrite rules that have existed for years.
“But Brandon gets mad when we touch his gym stuff.”
“I don’t care.”
My voice came out sharper than I intended.
Liam flinched.
I immediately lowered it.
“I mean I don’t care about his gym stuff anymore.”
Mrs. Patel sat beside me.
“Rachel, you should sleep before you decide anything.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No.”
“You can lie down even if you do not sleep.”
It was such a motherly sentence that I nearly broke again.
My own mother had said variations of it for most of my life.
Eat even if you aren’t hungry.
Rest even if you can’t sleep.
Put on a coat even if you think you’ll be fine.
The funeral flowers were probably still dying in buckets on her dining room table in Milwaukee.
For one irrational moment, I wanted to call her and complain about Brandon.
That instinct lasted less than a second.
The absence after it felt physical.
I asked Mrs. Patel if Liam and I could stay there until morning.
“You are not taking that child back into that house tonight,” she said.
It was the first time I heard anger in her voice.
Liam fell asleep beside me shortly after four.
I did not.
I watched the digital clock on the cable box turn from 4:17 to 4:18 and wondered how many nights he had done the same thing alone.
At 6:42, my phone rang.
The number was unfamiliar but local.
“Mrs. Mercer?”
A man introduced himself as Detective Harris with Columbus Police.
His tone was professional, almost apologetic.
He asked whether Liam was awake.
“No.”
“Let him sleep.”
The simple kindness of that instruction loosened something in my chest.
He asked me to come to the station later that morning without Liam if possible.
“There are some things we need to clarify.”
“Is Brandon being arrested?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Can you tell me whether leaving an eight-year-old alone for six days is illegal?”
He paused.
“I can tell you we are taking it seriously.”
It was not the answer I wanted.
It was probably the only answer he could give.
By eight, Mrs. Patel had made eggs for everyone.
Liam woke halfway through breakfast and ate with a concentration I had never seen from him before.
He finished two eggs, toast, half an orange, and asked for another piece of toast.
Nobody commented on how much he ate.
Mrs. Patel simply made more.
At nine, Claire called.
She had apparently spent most of the night searching flights.
“I can be there by noon.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Stop saying things nobody believes.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Claire could make irritation sound like affection and affection sound like an order.
May you like
She was four years younger than me and had spent our childhood insisting she did not need help while regularly stealing my sweaters, money, and algebra homework.
“I need somebody with Liam while I go to the police station.”
