Chương 5
Olivia looked toward the bedroom.
“That difference is going to be hard to explain to them.”
“It is hard to explain to adults.”
The guardian ad litem arrived that evening.
Daniel Cho was younger than Olivia expected, perhaps forty, with a rain-spotted coat and a canvas bag full of folders. He declined coffee and accepted water, then forgot to drink it.
He interviewed each boy separately in their bedroom while the other waited with Olivia in the kitchen. The apartment had only two bedrooms. Olivia slept in one, and the boys shared the other, though Ethan sometimes moved to the couch when Mason kicked.
Mason went first.
Ethan sat at the table listening to the muffled cadence of Daniel’s questions through the wall. He could not make out the words. Olivia folded the same dish towel three times.
“Stop,” Ethan said.
She looked down. “What?”
“You keep folding it.”
“I’m putting it away.”
“The drawer is over there.”
She set the towel on the table.
Neither spoke.
From downstairs came the heavy thump of an unbalanced washing machine. Someone laughed in the laundromat. A phone rang and rang before going silent.
Olivia sat opposite Ethan.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked.
“No.”
“You look mad.”
“I’m mad at about nine different people.”
“Am I one?”
She considered the question longer than he wanted.
“I’m angry that you were scared and didn’t tell me.”
“That means yes.”
“It means I’m angry at what happened. Not at you.”
“That’s what teachers say when they’re mad at you.”
She almost smiled.
“Teachers have more practice.”
The bedroom door opened. Mason came out carrying a plastic astronaut. Daniel followed.
“All yours,” Mason told Ethan.
It sounded like a warning.
Daniel interviewed Ethan for nearly an hour. He began with school, favorite subjects, friends, food at each parent’s home, and whether anyone had told him what to say.
Ethan said science, Caleb and Noor, grilled cheese at Mom’s, steak at Dad’s, and no.
Daniel asked whether he preferred one house.
“Mom’s.”
“Why?”
“It’s smaller.”
“Smaller feels better?”
“You can hear where everyone is.”
Daniel did not write that down immediately. He looked at Ethan first.
“At your father’s house, you can’t?”
“It’s big.”
“What happens when you don’t know where people are?”
“Nothing.”
“Does not knowing bother you?”
“Sometimes.”
Daniel asked about the recordings. Ethan explained the practice sessions without repeating every statement they had been made to memorize.
“What did your father say would happen if you didn’t practice?”
“He said Mom would keep making bad choices and we’d be stuck taking care of her.”
“Do you take care of your mother?”
“Sometimes I make Mason breakfast.”
“Does she ask you to?”
“Not usually.”
“Why do you?”
“She sleeps late on Sundays.”
“Is she difficult to wake?”
“Sometimes.”
“Does that scare you?”
Ethan looked at the astronaut on Mason’s bed.
“Once.”
Daniel waited.
Ethan told him about a Sunday the previous winter when Olivia had taken prescription medication after a dental procedure and slept through an alarm. Mason had spilled cereal, Ethan had called Olivia three times, and neither boy had known whether she was sick.
“What happened?” Daniel asked.
“She woke up.”
“How long were you alone?”
“Maybe an hour.”
“Did your father know?”
“Mason told him.”
“Did your father discuss it with you?”
“He said good mothers don’t make children wonder if they’re dead.”
Daniel stopped writing again.
“Did your mother explain what happened?”
“She said she took the wrong pill at the wrong time and was sorry.”
“Has anything like that happened again?”
“No.”
“Why did you include that event when you practiced with your father?”
“Because it was true.”
“What part was not true?”
“He made us say it happened all the time. And that Mom drinks.”
“Does she?”
“She has wine sometimes.”
“How often?”
“I don’t count.”
“Have you seen her unable to care for you because of alcohol?”
“No.”
“Did your father tell you to say you had?”
“Yes.”
Daniel’s face gave little away.
“Did you say it?”
“On the recording.”
“Why?”
Ethan twisted the cuff of his blazer shirt. He had changed his trousers but not his shirt. The collar felt tight without the tie.
“Because Mason was crying.”
“How did your saying it affect Mason?”
“Dad stopped making him do it.”
“So you took over?”
“I just said both parts.”
Daniel placed his pen on the folder.
“Ethan, children sometimes think protecting someone means carrying the difficult thing for them. It can feel useful. Even brave.”
Ethan looked at him.
“But it can also make the person carrying it very tired.”
“I’m not tired.”
“You look tired.”
“So do you.”
Daniel smiled a little. “Fair.”
The interview ended after Ethan described copying the files. Daniel asked him to draw the location of Jonathan’s office, the desk, computer, door, and hallway. Ethan drew carefully, including the rug that always caught on the office door.
When Daniel left, he spoke with Olivia in the hall. Ethan stayed in the kitchen with Mason, but the apartment walls were thin.
“I’m making no findings tonight,” Daniel said. “However, I recommend no unsupervised contact until the preliminary analysis.”
“Are they safe?”
“I don’t have evidence of physical harm.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Daniel lowered his voice, and Ethan lost part of the answer.
He heard: “psychological pressure,” “loyalty conflict,” and “parentification.”
Olivia said, “He’s nine. You make it sound like a diagnosis.”
“It isn’t. It’s a description of what he appears to be doing.”
“What do I do?”
“Don’t reward him for producing evidence. Don’t call him brave for protecting you. Don’t ask for details. Let him be angry. Let him be ordinary.”
“Ordinary costs money in this family.”
There was a pause.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she said.
Daniel’s reply was quieter. “It sounded tired.”
After he left, Olivia ordered pizza though they could not afford delivery. Mason chose mushrooms, then picked every mushroom off his slice.
May you like
Ethan ate two bites.
At six-thirty, Olivia’s phone lit with eleven missed calls from unknown numbers and one message from the manager of the dental office where she worked reception three days a week.
