Chương 8
I just want to see my daughter.
Then another.
Don’t make this uglier than it already is.
I stepped away from the window.
Lily had gone pale.
“Did you tell him where we live?”
“No.”
“Then how did he find us?”
I already knew.
The custody paperwork had my address.
The place I had fought to establish as proof that I could provide Lily with a stable home had just given Taylor exactly what he needed to stand beneath my window at seven in the morning.
My phone began ringing.
Taylor.
Lily covered her ears.
“Don’t answer.”
I looked at her.
“Okay.”
The ringing stopped.
Then someone knocked on the apartment door.
The knock came again.
Not loud.
That made it worse.
Taylor had always knocked softly when he was furious, as if volume belonged to people who had lost control.
Lily backed away from the door.
“Mommy.”
“I’ve got you.”
Rachel was still on the phone.
“Is that him?”
“Yes.”
“Do not open the door.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Call the police.”
A third knock.
Then Taylor’s voice came through the wood.
“Sarah, I know you’re in there.”
Lily moved behind me.
I dialed 911 on my second phone while keeping Rachel connected.
The dispatcher answered.
I gave the address and said my ex-husband was outside despite an active child protection investigation.
Taylor knocked again.
“I just want to talk.”
I said nothing.
“Sarah.”
The doorknob moved.
Once.
Slowly.
Lily gasped.
I stepped between her and the entrance.
The kitchen chair under the knob shifted half an inch.
Taylor stopped testing it.
Rachel said, “Did he just try the door?”
“Yes.”
“Tell dispatch.”
I did.
The dispatcher asked whether Taylor had a weapon.
“I don’t know.”
That answer tasted terrible.
I had lived with the man twelve years and suddenly did not know whether he might show up armed.
There were guns in the house.
Mine had been secured separately and removed when I moved out.
Taylor owned two hunting rifles and a handgun.
All legally purchased.
All ordinarily locked.
Ordinarily had become a word I no longer trusted.
“Daddy doesn’t like guns,” Lily whispered.
I looked at her.
“What?”
“He said guns make people stupid.”
The sentence was so exactly Taylor that under different circumstances I might have laughed.
Instead, I held a finger to my lips.
Taylor spoke through the door again.
“Lily, sweetheart, Daddy’s here.”
She froze.
“Don’t,” I said.
He heard me.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t speak to her through the door.”
“She’s my child.”
“She is frightened.”
“Because you made her frightened.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
Rachel cut in immediately.
“Do not respond.”
Taylor continued.
“You dragged her into an ambulance and filled her head with police questions.”
I almost opened the door then.
Not because I wanted to fight him.
Because I wanted to see his face when he said it.
I wanted to know whether he truly believed his own version of reality or whether he had simply chosen the version that might save him.
Rachel said my name.
“Sarah.”
“I’m here.”
“Stay there.”
Taylor knocked again.
“What did you tell them about Mom?”
Lily covered her ears.
That decided it.
“Move into the bedroom,” I whispered.
She shook her head.
“Go.”
“No.”
“Lily.”
Her eyes filled.
“I don’t want you alone.”
The words cut through me.
I crouched.
“I’m not alone.”
“Yes, you are.”
I had no answer for that.
The dispatcher told me officers were less than two minutes away.
Taylor must have heard sirens because his tone changed.
“I came here peacefully.”
Nobody answered.
“I just want to see my daughter.”
He moved away from the door.
Through the blinds, I saw him cross the parking lot.
For one foolish second, I thought he was leaving.
Then he opened the rear door of his SUV.
He took out Lily’s pink backpack.
She saw it too.
“That’s mine.”
“I know.”
Taylor returned to the walkway and set the backpack outside my door.
“I brought her school stuff.”
His voice sounded almost normal.
That frightened me more than the anger.
“She has her reading folder in there.”
Lily whispered, “My library book.”
The absurdity of it nearly broke me.
A freezer.
A criminal investigation.
An emergency custody filing.
And somewhere inside that backpack was a library book that still had to be returned.
Taylor stepped back just as two patrol cars entered the lot.
The officers separated us without allowing me outside.
One spoke to Taylor near his SUV.
The other came upstairs.
I removed the chair but left the chain engaged until I saw the uniform through the peephole.
The officer introduced herself as Officer Bell.
She was younger than I expected and looked as if she had been awake all night.
“Is everyone okay?”
“Yes.”
Lily peeked from behind me.
Bell smiled at her.
“Morning.”
Lily did not answer.
Bell did not push.
“Did Mr. Bennett enter the apartment?”
“No.”
“Threaten you?”
“No.”
“Touch the door?”
“He tried the knob.”
Bell wrote that down.
“Any restraining order currently in effect?”
“Not yet.”
“Any court order preventing contact?”
“No.”
The answers sounded worse each time.
Bell glanced toward Lily.
“Would you like him formally trespassed from the property?”
“I’m not the property owner.”
“You’re the lawful tenant.”
“Yes.”
“Then you can tell him he’s not permitted at your residence.”
“Yes.”
The word came easier.
“I want that.”
Bell nodded.
“We’ll inform him.”
Lily tugged my sleeve.
“Does that mean Daddy gets arrested?”
“No,” Bell said before I could answer.
“It means he can’t come here unless your mom says it’s okay.”
Lily considered that.
“What if he forgets?”
Bell crouched slightly.
“Then the grown-ups remind him.”
It was not completely true.
It was kind enough.
Taylor remained outside another fifteen minutes.
I watched through the blinds while Bell’s partner spoke to him.
He gestured several times toward the apartment.
At one point he looked directly at my window.
May you like
I let the blind fall.
When the patrol cars finally escorted his SUV from the lot, Lily went to the door.
