Chương 5
Emily opened Madison’s social media page.
The video had been recorded in the hospital parking structure. Madison’s hair was damp now, and the bright blue jacket was zipped to her chin. She looked directly into the camera.
“I never thought I would have to say this publicly,” she began.
Emily stopped the video.
She could already predict the shape of it. Concern. Privacy. A family in crisis. A vulnerable child. Emily’s medication. Daniel’s temper. Madison’s selfless attempt to help. No specific allegation strong enough to be disproved, only enough suggestion to make strangers fill in the rest.
Daniel came out of the bathroom carrying Lily’s floral jacket.
“Don’t watch it.”
“She posted it twelve minutes ago.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Renee sent it to me.”
“Did you answer her?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Daniel hung the jacket over a chair.
Emily restarted the video.
Madison spoke for three minutes. She said Lily’s welfare had become “complicated.” She said people should pray for Emily’s recovery and avoid judgment. She said she had been “physically attacked with a motorized medical device” while trying to protect a child. She did not mention grabbing the rabbit. She did not mention the court order. She did not mention calling the school.
By the end, she was crying carefully enough not to disturb her mascara.
The comments were already dividing into camps.
Some praised Madison’s courage. Some asked why police were involved. One person who had attended high school with Emily wrote, I always knew there was something controlling about that family.
Emily opened the comment box.
Daniel took the phone from her.
“Give it back.”
“No.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No, you’re a woman on narcotic pain medication who just used a wheelchair as a defensive weapon.”
“I blocked her.”
“With force.”
“She had Lily.”
“I know. I’m still not letting you post.”
Emily reached for the phone and immediately regretted the movement. Pain caught beneath the dressing. She inhaled sharply.
Daniel placed the phone on the dresser out of reach.
“You don’t get to control me because I’m injured.”
“I’m not controlling you. I’m delaying you by ten minutes.”
“For what?”
“For you to decide whether you want to sound like yourself or like a person your sister can use.”
Emily glared at him.
He sat on the opposite bed. “Write whatever you want. Don’t send it tonight.”
“She is telling people I attacked her.”
“You did hit her with the chair.”
“I moved between her and Lily.”
“I was there. I know why. A stranger watching a three-minute video doesn’t.”
“So we give them the truth.”
“No. We give the truth to the lawyer, the court, the school, and child welfare. We don’t give our daughter’s worst day to people who want something to discuss during dinner.”
Lily appeared in the bathroom doorway wearing pajamas printed with tiny yellow stars.
“Are people talking about me?”
Neither adult answered quickly enough.
Lily looked at the phone on the dresser.
Emily held out her hand. “Come here.”
Lily climbed onto the bed and leaned carefully against Emily’s side. Her hair smelled like the hotel shampoo Daniel had used because they had forgotten the children’s kind.
“Madison made a video,” Emily said.
“Am I in it?”
“No.”
“Did she say my name?”
“Not in the part I heard.”
“Will kids at school see it?”
Emily looked at Daniel.
He said, “Maybe some adults will. The school won’t let anyone bother you.”
Lily picked at a loose thread on the rabbit’s leg. “They already ask why I don’t look like Dad.”
“You do look like me,” Daniel said. “We both have terrible morning hair.”
Lily did not smile.
Emily stroked one finger across Lily’s knuckles. “None of this is because of you.”
“Madison said it was.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Daniel glanced at Emily, but she kept her eyes on Lily.
The child’s shoulders rose beneath her pajama top.
“She said you got sick because you were trying to have a real baby.”
Emily’s hand stopped.
Daniel looked down.
Lily continued, watching the rabbit instead of either parent. “She said when you got better, you would want things normal. She said sometimes grown-ups make promises before they know what their life is going to be.”
Emily tasted metal at the back of her mouth.
“Did she say we were sending you away?”
“She said there are families who only have adopted kids, so I wouldn’t make them sad.”
Daniel stood and walked toward the window.
Emily kept her voice level. “Did Grandma hear her?”
Lily nodded.
“What did Grandma say?”
“She told Madison not to say it like that.”
Emily closed her eyes for one second.
Not to say it. Not that it was untrue.
“What did Grandpa say?”
“He turned the television louder.”
Daniel faced the window. Outside, headlights moved along the wet street below.
Lily looked up. “Was there a baby?”
Emily had planned to tell her differently.
She had planned a quiet Sunday morning at home, after her body had healed and she could sit on the couch without calculating the distance to the bathroom. She had planned pancakes, because Lily ate serious conversations more easily when syrup was involved. She had planned to explain that Emily had been pregnant for a very short time, that the pregnancy had formed in the wrong place, that doctors had operated because internal bleeding was dangerous, and that the loss did not change the family they already had.
Instead, she was in a hotel bed under a framed picture of a bridge she had never crossed.
“There was the beginning of a baby,” Emily said.
Lily waited.
“It couldn’t grow safely. That’s why I needed surgery.”
“Did it die?”
“Yes.”
Daniel turned from the window.
Lily rubbed the rabbit’s ear between two fingers. “Are you sad?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sad because you wanted a real one?”
Emily’s breath caught.
May you like
She lowered her forehead to Lily’s hair.
“You are real,” she said. “You are my daughter when I’m healthy, when I’m sick, when I’m sad, when I’m angry, and when everything is boring. Nothing about you is temporary.”
