Chương 9
She rubbed one eye.
“Can I have another juice?”
“Yes.”
I looked toward the door.
“I’ll get Marisol.”
“I can get it,” Adam said.
He left.
Lizzy watched him go.
“Uncle Adam is mad.”
“He’s worried.”
“At me?”
“No.”
She considered that.
“Everybody keeps saying no.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I ask if they’re mad at me.”
My throat tightened.
“Maybe because nobody is.”
She looked unconvinced.
Adam returned with Marisol and another small bottle of apple juice.
Marisol checked the chart before handing it over.
“Slowly.”
Lizzy obeyed.
She took three tiny sips, then stopped.
“You can have more,” Marisol said.
“I know.”
But she capped it.
Marisol did not push.
A little after four, they moved Lizzy upstairs to a pediatric observation room.
The hallways were quieter there.
Lights dimmer.
A janitor pushed a wide mop past us and apologized even though he was nowhere near our feet.
The elevator doors opened on a woman carrying a newborn in a car seat.
She looked exhausted and happy and terrified.
I watched her until the doors closed.
Life was happening everywhere, indifferent to ours.
In Lizzy’s room, someone had painted cartoon clouds near the ceiling.
There was a pullout chair by the window and a plastic couch that Adam declared was designed by an enemy of the human spine.
Lizzy looked at it seriously.
“Maybe a bad doctor.”
Adam nodded.
“Possible.”
She smiled again.
A real smile this time.
Small, but real.
Marisol had gone back downstairs.
A pediatric nurse named Tasha introduced herself and explained the call button.
Lizzy pressed it accidentally while trying to adjust the bed.
A voice answered immediately.
Lizzy startled.
Tasha laughed softly.
“That’s all right.”
She leaned toward the speaker.
“We’re good in here.”
Then she showed Lizzy how to use the bed controls.
Lizzy raised the head of the bed all the way up.
Then lowered it.
Then raised it again.
For thirty seconds she was simply six.
I watched her experiment with the buttons until Adam caught my eye.
Neither of us said anything.
At four-thirty, Denise arrived with a woman carrying a canvas tote and wearing sneakers under black slacks.
She introduced herself as Carmen Ruiz from the county child protection unit.
Lizzy went still.
Carmen noticed.
She did not approach the bed.
“I talk to kids and families when somebody is worried about safety.”
Lizzy looked at me.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No,” Carmen said.
The answer was immediate.
“You are not in trouble.”
“Grandma said people come when kids lie.”
Carmen’s expression barely changed.
“People call us for lots of reasons.”
She pulled a chair away from the wall but did not sit yet.
“Sometimes grown-ups disagree about what happened.”
“Grandma gets mad when people disagree.”
Carmen glanced at me.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
She asked whether Lizzy wanted me to stay while they talked.
Lizzy said yes so quickly it overlapped the question.
Carmen nodded.
“Okay.”
She asked Adam if he would wait outside.
He squeezed my shoulder as he left.
Carmen sat.
For the next twenty minutes, she asked almost nothing the way I expected.
She asked what Lizzy liked at school.
Art.
She asked what she liked to eat.
Macaroni, strawberries, pancakes, and the crispy edges of grilled cheese.
She asked where she slept at Grandma and Grandpa’s.
“The pink room.”
She asked whether there were places in the house she was not allowed to go.
“Grandpa’s tools.”
“Anywhere else?”
“The pantry sometimes.”
“Why?”
“So I don’t sneak.”
“Do you sneak food?”
Lizzy’s face flushed.
“Sometimes.”
“What kind?”
“Crackers.”
“Anything else?”
“Bread.”
Carmen kept her voice ordinary.
“What happens if Grandma finds out?”
“I have to give it back.”
“And then?”
Lizzy looked at me.
I kept my face still.
She whispered, “Sometimes closet.”
Carmen did not write immediately.
“Which closet?”
“The coat one upstairs.”
“Is it part of your bedroom?”
“No.”
“How do you get out?”
Lizzy’s brow furrowed as if the question did not make sense.
“I don’t.”
“What happens when you want to come out?”
“I wait.”
“For what?”
“Grandma.”
Carmen finally wrote something.
“Does Grandpa let you out?”
“Sometimes.”
“Does Grandma know?”
Lizzy shook her head.
“Does Grandpa tell you not to tell her?”
“He says don’t make it worse.”
That sentence landed harder than anything else.
Carmen’s pen stopped.
I looked at the window.
Dawn had begun thinning the darkness over the parking garage.
Gray light edged the buildings across the street.
Carmen asked one more question.
“Lizzy, where do you want to go when the doctor says you can leave?”
Lizzy stared at her juice bottle.
Then she looked at me.
“With Aunt Natalie.”
My heart lurched.
Carmen did not look surprised.
“Do you feel safe there?”
Lizzy nodded.
“Have you stayed there before?”
“Yes.”
“Does anyone scare you there?”
She shook her head.
“Noah snores.”
I covered my mouth.
Carmen smiled.
“That can be scary.”
Lizzy smiled too.
Then the smile faded.
“Grandma will be mad.”
Carmen leaned back slightly.
“That is something the adults will handle.”
Lizzy looked at me again.
I had no idea whether I was allowed to promise anything.
So I did not.
I only said, “You don’t have to handle Grandma.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
She blinked them away quickly.
Carmen closed her notebook.
“I need to make some calls.”
Outside the room, Adam was standing beside the vending machines holding two terrible-looking coffees.
He handed me one.
“What did she say?”
“She wants to come home with us.”
His face softened.
“Okay.”
“I don’t know if they’ll let her.”
“We’ll deal with whatever they decide.”
I stared into the coffee.
A skin had formed across the top.
“That phrase is becoming annoying.”
“What phrase?”
“We’ll deal with it.”
“What would you prefer?”
“I don’t know.”
“Excellent.”
I looked at him.
He took a sip and grimaced.
“This is punishment.”
I almost smiled again.
Then Carmen came out.
Her expression had changed.
Not dramatically.
May you like
Just more official.
“I need to speak with both of you.”
