Part 3
The little girl looked down at her white shoes.
“Ivy,” Hart said gently, “did you see Poppy after the cake?”
Ivy pressed her fingers together.
Alix immediately moved closer to her.
“She’s upset,” Alix said. “You shouldn’t question her right now.”
Officer Hart did not look away from Ivy.
“I’m not asking her to explain anything. I just want to know if she saw her cousin.”
Ivy looked at Hannah.
Her eyes were enormous.
“She said she wanted to hide,” Ivy whispered.
The yard went still.
Hannah’s heart stopped, then began beating too fast.
“Hide where?” she asked.
Ivy shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Did she say who she was hiding from?”
Ivy’s mouth opened.
Corinne said sharply, “Ivy.”
The girl closed it again.
Officer Hart turned toward Corinne.
“Let her answer in her own time.”
Corinne’s face flushed.
“I’m only saying she’s frightened.”
“So is everyone,” Hart said.
His voice was not unkind, but it had changed.
Hannah looked at Ivy.
The girl’s gaze had drifted toward the green bin.
“Ivy,” Hannah said softly. “Did you see Poppy go over there?”
Ivy’s lower lip trembled.
“She had the blue ribbon.”
The words made no sense at first.
Then Hannah looked at the ground.
A blue ribbon from the party’s game had been tied around the bin handle. She remembered it now. Poppy had been playing a scavenger hunt before the cake. The children had been told to find things in the yard: something blue, something soft, something that made a sound.
Poppy had collected ribbons.
She had tied one around the porch rail. One around a chair leg. One around the basket of plastic forks.
Hannah had laughed and told her she was making the house look like it had caught a cold.
Poppy had looked delighted.
“She had the blue ribbon,” Ivy said again. “She said it was a secret door.”
Corinne’s hand covered her mouth.
Stephen looked at the bin.
Alix’s eyes filled with tears, though she wiped them away quickly.
Officer Hart watched everyone.
He did not decide what the words meant.
Neither did Hannah.
A child could imagine a secret door. A child could climb where she should not. A child could be moved by someone else. A child could hide because a game had turned frightening. A child could be found in a place that should never have been left open.
There were too many possibilities.
The worst ones crowded the space around Hannah’s heart, but she refused to give any of them a name.
Not yet.
Poppy stirred again.
Her fingers caught weakly at Hannah’s shirt.
“Honey?” Hannah whispered. “Poppy?”
Poppy’s eyes opened halfway.
They were glassy and confused.
“Mama?”
Hannah nearly collapsed.
“I’m here.”
Poppy looked around.
The flashing lights caught in her eyes.
The porch.
The bins.
The strangers.
Then she began to cry.
It was not a loud cry. It was thin and exhausted, but it was a cry.
Hannah pressed her face into Poppy’s hair and wept with her.
Evan turned away for a second, rubbing a hand across his jaw.
Even Officer Hart’s expression softened.
But the porch stayed silent.
Hannah looked up at them through tears.
Corinne had begun crying too, though quietly. Stephen stood with both hands on the railing, his knuckles pale. Alix had pulled Ivy close against her side.
They looked horrified.
They looked frightened.
They did not look guilty.
That was the problem.
Hannah had wanted someone to look guilty. She wanted a face to attach to the terror flooding her body. She wanted a name she could say with certainty. She wanted the world to become simple enough to hate.
Instead there was only a yard full of party trash, a child in her arms, and four people on a porch who had been passive when passivity was the one thing Hannah could not forgive.
Officer Hart spoke into his radio, then returned his attention to the group.
“I’m going to need everyone to stay where you are for a while,” he said.
Corinne nodded.
“Of course.”
Stephen looked toward Hannah.
“Is she all right?”
Hannah stared at him.
He looked down.
The question was unbearable because it was so ordinary. Is she all right? As if Poppy had fallen off a swing. As if somebody could answer with yes or no and make the whole yard go back to being a birthday party.
“She was in a garbage bin,” Hannah said.
Stephen’s face crumpled.
“I know.”
“No,” Hannah said. “You don’t.”
Evan stepped closer, not between them, but near enough that Hannah felt less alone.
He did not know her well. He had never been invited into the private weather of the Vale family. He had only come for a borrowed table. He had only seen a woman turn herself inside out searching for her child while everyone who claimed to love that child stayed on the porch.
Sometimes strangers saw things more clearly because they had no investment in denying them.
He looked at Hannah.
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
The question was so gentle that it nearly made her cry again.
“No,” she said. Then, after a pause: “Stay.”
He nodded.
“I’m here.”
Poppy’s cheek pressed against Hannah’s collarbone. Her body had begun to warm beneath Hannah’s hands, or perhaps Hannah only needed to believe it had. She kept talking to her in a low voice.
“You remember your yellow rain boots?” she murmured. “The ones you wanted to wear with pajamas? You told me they made you faster than the dog.”
Poppy made a small sound.
“That’s right. And you said you were going to teach me how to run fast. You remember?”
Her daughter’s lashes fluttered.
Hannah continued because memories were the only rope she had.
“We have your bunny at home. The blue one with the one crooked ear. You left it on the couch this morning because you said it was watching the party.”
May you like
Poppy’s fingers curled tighter in her shirt.
Officer Hart had moved toward the porch group.
