Part 3
Adrian saw the bandage above Mara’s eye. He lifted his hand as if to touch it, then let it fall.
“How is she?”
“They’re monitoring her. They spoke to poison control. They won’t tell me more until they know what was in the bottle.”
“They have the bottle.”
“And the label.”
“Yes.”
The word landed between them.
Mara looked at him. “You knew it.”
His eyes shifted toward Sophie.
“You recognized it.”
“I recognized the color.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
A physician approached before Adrian answered. She spoke carefully, explaining that Sophie’s vital signs had been unstable but were responding to treatment. They would continue monitoring her breathing and heart. The prescription appeared to be a concentrated sedating medication intended for an adult, but they were still confirming the contents with the pharmacy and laboratory.
“Is she going to be okay?” Adrian asked.
“We are cautiously optimistic. The next several hours matter.”
Mara gripped the edge of Sophie’s mattress.
The physician glanced at her bandage and then at the deputy.
“Someone from social services will need to speak with you. That’s routine in a case involving a child and a potentially intentional administration of medication.”
“It was not intentional,” Adrian said.
Mara turned toward him.
The physician did not react. “That determination isn’t mine to make.”
She left them with the soft electronic beeping of the monitor.
Adrian rubbed both hands over his face. “I meant she didn’t intend to hurt her.”
“She intended to give it to her.”
“I know.”
“She hid the label.”
“I know.”
“She threw the bottle at me when I tried to take it.”
“I was there.”
“You were there for the last part.”
His hands dropped.
Mara had known Adrian for eleven years. She had watched him talk furious clients out of lawsuits, negotiate with men who mistook quietness for weakness, and sit through his father’s funeral while half the town looked to him for instructions. His restraint had always seemed like strength.
Now it looked like inheritance.
“What did you recognize?” she asked.
He looked at the floor.
A cleaner pushed a cart past the open doorway. One wheel squeaked every third turn. Somewhere nearby, a child cried for his father, then stopped when someone offered him ice chips.
Adrian said, “A bottle like that was in her bathroom last Christmas.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I asked her about it.”
“And?”
“She said it was for sleep.”
“Why did you ask?”
He pressed his lips together.
Mara waited. She had spent years filling his silences for him, suggesting kinder versions of what he might mean, accepting a nod as if it were a complete sentence. She did not do it now.
Adrian pulled the visitor’s chair away from the wall and sat, though Mara remained standing.
“Sophie told me Mom gave her something when she couldn’t settle down,” he said. “She called it blue water. I thought she meant one of those herbal things Mom buys. I asked Mom directly. She said it was chamomile.”
“When?”
“In January.”
Mara stared at him.
Eight months.
Eight months of Sophie spending weekends at Greyhaven. Eight months of unexplained naps, headaches, carsickness that came only on the drive home. Eight months of Evelyn criticizing Sophie for being too sensitive, too restless, too attached to her mother.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I told her never to give Sophie anything without asking us.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I believed her.”
“No. You believed that whatever she had done was over.”
He flinched.
Mara lowered her voice because Sophie was only a few feet away, because nurses were passing, because if she let herself speak at the volume she wanted, she might never stop.
“You decided I didn’t need to know someone had given our six-year-old something from an unmarked bottle.”
“It wasn’t unmarked then. I didn’t see it. Sophie was trying to explain—”
“You decided.”
Adrian stood.
“I was wrong.”
The directness surprised her. For a moment, it almost sounded sufficient.
Then Sophie moved under the blanket and murmured in her sleep. Both parents turned toward her. The monitor continued its steady pattern.
Mara sat beside the bed and placed a palm against Sophie’s hair.
Adrian stood behind her for several seconds. When he spoke, his voice had changed.
“I’m going to tell the deputy.”
“You should.”
“I’ll tell him everything.”
Mara did not look back.
“You should have told me.”
A hospital social worker arrived after dark. Her name was Denise, and she had a tired face, sensible shoes, and a way of asking terrible questions without making them sound gentle or cruel. She spoke to Mara and Adrian separately. She asked who lived in their home, who supervised Sophie, how often Evelyn had access to her, whether there had been previous injuries, whether either parent had ever suspected inappropriate medication.
Mara answered until her mouth went dry.
When Denise asked whether Mara believed Adrian had knowingly placed Sophie in danger, Mara looked through the narrow window in the consultation-room door. She could see part of his shoulder in the hall. He was speaking to the deputy, his head bent.
“I believe he knew enough to tell me,” she said.
It was the most painful truthful answer available.
Denise wrote it down.
Evelyn arrived at the hospital with an attorney shortly after nine. She had changed her blouse. The ivory silk was gone, replaced by a dark cashmere sweater that made her look smaller and older. Her pearls remained.
The deputy did not let her enter Sophie’s room.
Mara saw Evelyn through the glass at the end of the corridor. She was seated beside a man with a narrow briefcase. She held a paper cup of water without drinking. Once, her eyes lifted and found Mara’s.
May you like
Evelyn touched two fingers to her own right eyebrow.
The gesture was so slight that Mara wondered whether she had imagined it. An acknowledgment of the cut. Perhaps an apology performed across a distance where it could not be refused.
