Chương 7
Procedures.
Not verdicts.
After they left, Daniel locked the front door.
Emma sat on the sofa under a blanket even though the house was warm.
“Am I going to school tomorrow?” she asked.
Claire sat beside her.
“If you want.”
Emma shook her head quickly.
“Then no.”
“Will people see my head?”
Claire wanted to promise no one would.
She could not.
“Eventually.”
Emma began twisting the edge of the blanket.
“What if they laugh?”
Daniel sat in the chair across from them.
“Somebody might say something stupid.”
Claire glanced at him.
It was not comforting.
It was true.
Emma looked at him.
“What do I do?”
“You tell a teacher. Or you tell them to stop. Or you walk away. Or you call us.”
“What if I cry?”
Daniel shrugged.
“Then you cry.”
Emma looked at Claire.
“Is that bad?”
“No.”
“Grandma said it makes people think you’re weak.”
Claire felt the now-familiar coldness settle through her.
“Grandma said a lot of things she shouldn’t have.”
Emma touched her scalp.
“Can we fix it?”
Claire’s throat tightened.
“We can make it more even.”
“No.”
Emma looked frustrated.
“I mean can we make it grow back?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“It takes time.”
“How much?”
Claire did not know exactly.
“Months before it feels long again. Longer than that to get back where it was.”
Emma stared at the television screen, which had gone dark.
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes.”
“I hate it.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
Claire nodded.
“Okay.”
Emma began crying then.
Not loudly.
Her face folded, and she pulled the blanket over her head.
Claire reached for her.
Emma pushed her hand away.
Claire let it fall.
That hurt more than the push deserved.
Daniel sat very still.
After a while Emma lowered the blanket.
“Can I sleep in your room?”
“Yes,” Claire said.
Daniel answered at the same time.
“Of course.”
Emma looked between them.
“Both of you?”
Claire and Daniel looked at each other.
“Yes,” Claire said.
That night Emma slept sideways between them, one foot pressed against Daniel’s ribs and one hand curled near Claire’s collarbone.
Claire did not sleep.
At two in the morning, Daniel whispered, “You awake?”
“Yes.”
“I keep thinking about things.”
“Me too.”
“Mom used to cut my hair.”
Claire turned her head.
“What?”
“When I was a kid.”
She waited.
“She hated when it got over my ears. My dad didn’t care. I did. I wanted it longer when I was maybe eleven.”
Emma shifted between them.
Daniel lowered his voice further.
“She cut it while I was asleep once.”
Claire stared into the darkness.
“You never told me that.”
“I forgot.”
“No, you didn’t.”
He was quiet.
“You’re right.”
“What happened?”
“I woke up. Got mad. Dad told me it was hair and it would grow back.”
Claire looked toward Emma’s small shape.
“And your mother?”
“She said I looked respectable again.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Claire almost asked how he had not seen today coming.
Then she thought of all the things people learned to call normal because the alternative required them to revisit childhood with adult eyes.
She did not forgive him.
But the question changed.
“What else did she do?”
Daniel lay silent so long Claire thought he would not answer.
“She read my notes.”
“What notes?”
“Anything. School notebooks. Letters. Later emails if I left my laptop open.”
“You told me she was nosy.”
“She was.”
“That isn’t nosy.”
“I know.”
“Now.”
“Yes. Now.”
He rubbed his face.
“I hated conflict with her.”
Claire looked at him.
“You still do.”
“I know.”
That answer angered her less than it should have.
Emma moved in her sleep and pressed closer to Claire.
Daniel whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Claire stared at the ceiling.
“For what part?”
He did not answer.
Good.
There were too many parts.
In the morning, Claire called work and said she needed emergency family leave for the day. Her supervisor, Lena, asked no questions beyond whether Claire was safe.
“Yes.”
Then Claire looked at Emma sitting at the breakfast table wearing one of Daniel’s knit caps pulled low over her ears.
“We’re safe.”
It felt like a statement under construction.
Daniel called his office too.
Margaret sent fourteen texts before noon.
Claire stopped reading after the fourth.
Daniel read all of them.
That caused their first real argument.
“Why are you doing that?” Claire asked.
“In case she says something important.”
“She’s saying the same thing.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She’s keeping you engaged.”
“I’m documenting.”
“You’re responding.”
“Once.”
“You responded three times.”
Daniel dropped his phone onto the counter.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to stop acting like every message from your mother is a summons.”
“I’m trying to keep this from getting worse.”
“It is already worse.”
“That doesn’t mean we burn everything down.”
Claire stared at him.
“Burn what down?”
“My relationship with her.”
Emma was in the living room.
Claire kept her voice low.
“She used your name to frighten our daughter into sitting still while she shaved her head.”
“I know.”
“Then what relationship are you protecting?”
Daniel’s face went hard.
“My mother is still my mother.”
Claire felt something inside her give way.
Not dramatically.
More like a thread pulled through fabric.
“Okay.”
He heard it.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I finally understand what you’re saying.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep turning complicated things into tests.”
“No. She did that.”
Claire pointed toward his phone.
“She decided there was a test. She decided loyalty meant allowing her to harm Emma. I’m just noticing you haven’t answered yet.”
Daniel stood.
“I told her to leave.”
“Yes.”
“I stayed at urgent care.”
“Yes.”
“I told the police what happened.”
“Yes.”
“What exactly do I have to do for it to count?”
Claire looked at him.
“Stop making me give you a rubric for protecting your daughter.”
He walked out of the kitchen.
A door shut upstairs.
May you like
Not slammed.
Almost worse.
