Chương 5
Officer Bennett handed my phone back.
“I need to speak with them.”
“Am I being arrested?”
She looked at me.
“Not at this moment.”
The wording chilled me.
She must have seen it.
“That is not a prediction,” she added.
“It means I’m gathering information.”
She turned to Denise.
“Has CPS been notified?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Then she walked toward my parents.
Gloria stood before the officer reached her.
Walt remained seated.
At first I could not hear them.
Then my mother’s voice rose.
“She abducted our granddaughter.”
Officer Bennett said something quietly.
Gloria pointed toward me.
“You’re letting her manipulate you.”
My father looked up.
Officer Bennett asked him a question.
He answered too softly to hear.
Gloria snapped, “Walter, stop.”
Officer Bennett asked another question.
My father stood.
His face looked twenty years older than it had at dinner the previous Christmas.
He glanced toward the treatment-room door.
Then at me.
Then at his wife.
“I put the phone in Lizzy’s room,” he said.
Gloria went completely still.
Officer Bennett asked, “Why?”
Walt’s mouth worked before sound came.
“Because I knew Gloria was going to lock her in again.”
The waiting room seemed to lose all air.
My mother whispered, “You son of a bitch.”
My father flinched.
Then he looked directly at the officer.
“It wasn’t the first time.”
Officer Bennett did not react immediately.
She looked at Walt for several seconds, then asked, “How many times?”
Walt stared at the floor.
“I don’t know.”
Gloria laughed once.
It was a brittle, disbelieving sound.
“You don’t know because it didn’t happen.”
He looked at her.
“I saw the latch.”
“You installed that latch.”
“For storage.”
“And then you started using it.”
“You used it too.”
Gloria’s face changed.
Not much.
Just enough.
Officer Bennett caught it.
“So you both knew the door could be secured from the outside?”
Neither answered.
Denise stepped closer to the officer.
“The child told medical staff she could not leave when she was placed there.”
Gloria turned toward her.
“She is six years old.”
Officer Bennett said, “Ma’am, I need you to stop interrupting.”
My mother stared at her as if no one had spoken to her that way in decades.
Maybe no one had.
Walt sat down again.
His shoulders folded inward.
Officer Bennett moved a few feet away from Gloria.
“Mr. Mercer, when you said again, what did you mean?”
He rubbed the heel of one hand against his forehead.
“There were other times.”
“How long was she kept inside?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Minutes?”
He said nothing.
“Hours?”
His silence answered before his mouth did.
“Sometimes.”
Gloria made a sharp movement toward him.
“You coward.”
One of the security officers stepped between them.
Walt looked at her with something that almost resembled anger.
“I told you it was too much.”
“You told me nothing.”
“I told you.”
“You muttered.”
“I told you to stop.”
“You stood there.”
He recoiled as if she had slapped him.
The accusation landed because it was true.
He looked toward the treatment room.
Then his eyes found mine.
“I should’ve taken her out.”
I could not answer.
There were too many things I might have said, and every one of them felt inadequate.
Why didn’t you?
How could you?
You gave her a phone instead of opening the door?
He looked away first.
Officer Bennett asked, “Why didn’t you remove the latch?”
Walt’s throat worked.
“Because Gloria said Lizzy needed consequences.”
“You agreed?”
“At first.”
Gloria interrupted.
“At first because the child was dangerous.”
Denise’s eyebrows lifted.
“Dangerous how?”
“She threw things.”
“What things?”
“Whatever was near her.”
Walt said, “A stuffed animal once.”
Gloria spun toward him.
“She broke a lamp.”
“She knocked it over.”
“Because she was angry.”
“She was crying.”
“She was out of control.”
“She was six.”
My father’s voice cracked on the last word.
Silence spread outward from him.
I had heard him defend my mother all my life.
Sometimes directly.
Sometimes by explaining her.
Sometimes simply by leaving the room.
Hearing him contradict her now did not feel satisfying.
It felt late.
Officer Bennett asked Walt whether he would provide a statement separately.
He nodded.
Gloria said, “Absolutely not.”
Bennett looked at her.
“He can decide that for himself.”
“He is exhausted.”
“I’m fine,” Walt said.
Gloria gave him a long look.
He shrank under it, but he did not take the words back.
An officer led him toward a quieter corner near the entrance.
My mother remained where she was.
She folded her arms.
Then she smiled at me.
That frightened me more than yelling.
“You think you won.”
I stared at her.
“This is not a game.”
“It has always been a game with you.”
Adam returned from the hallway in time to hear that.
He stopped beside me.
Gloria looked at him.
“Did she tell you how many times she threatened to run away as a teenager?”
I felt heat rise up my neck.
Adam said nothing.
“How she lied?”
“Mom.”
“How she accused me of controlling her because I wouldn’t let her sleep at some boy’s house?”
“Stop.”
“How she screamed that she hated us and then acted shocked when there were consequences?”
Officer Bennett turned.
“Ma’am.”
Gloria ignored her.
“She has wanted to punish me since she was fifteen.”
I stepped toward her before Adam could stop me.
“You locked a six-year-old child in a closet.”
“She needed discipline.”
“She was hungry.”
“She refused food.”
“She had bruises.”
Her face flickered.
There it was again.
A tiny break in the surface.
I saw it.
So did Denise.
Gloria recovered quickly.
“Children bruise.”
“On her back?”
She looked at me without blinking.
I did not know if she knew.
That uncertainty made my skin crawl.
Before anyone could speak again, Dr. Patel came through the treatment-room door.
He looked at Denise first.
Then at me.
“Could I speak with you and your husband?”
Gloria immediately said, “I’m her guardian.”
May you like
Dr. Patel’s expression remained neutral.
“At this time, we are limiting access while the safety assessment is active.”
