Chương 3
He stood at the sink cleaning egg from a jar of pasta sauce while the house made normal evening noises around him.
The refrigerator compressor clicked on.
A delivery truck stopped outside.
Somebody two houses away ran a lawn mower even though it was almost dark.
Daniel washed the jar twice.
Claire had left.
She had sent three messages.
Where are you?
Are the girls okay?
Please tell me you are not letting Laura turn this into something it isn’t.
He read the third message several times.
Then he typed: The girls are with Laura. Do not contact them tonight.
Claire called immediately.
He declined it.
She called again.
He declined that one too.
The third time, he answered.
“What?”
“You took them to a doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Daniel, what the hell?”
He leaned against the counter.
“Did you grab Maya’s wrist?”
“She was reaching for something she wasn’t allowed to have.”
“The key.”
“Yes, the key. Your key, apparently, since you decided to go behind my back and give an eight-year-old a way to undermine me in my own home.”
“Our home.”
“Great. Fine. Our home. You know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t.”
Claire breathed out hard.
“She was trying to get outside after I told her no. I caught her arm. That’s it.”
“You locked them outside.”
“No.”
“I watched you do it.”
There was a pause.
“That was today.”
Daniel stared at the dark glass over the sink.
“What does that mean?”
“Today, yes. I shut the door.”
“And chained it.”
“For a minute.”
“Why?”
“Because they would not listen.”
He closed his eyes.
Claire kept talking.
“They kept going in and out with wet feet. I told them six times. Sophie nearly slipped in the kitchen. I said if they wanted to be outside so badly, fine. They could stay outside until they learned to ask.”
“At the pool.”
“They know how to swim.”
“Sophie is six.”
“I was standing ten feet away.”
“Behind a locked door.”
“Oh, stop saying locked like I abandoned them in a parking lot.”
Daniel pulled the phone away from his ear for a second.
The casualness of the sentence frightened him.
Not because Claire sounded cruel.
Because she sounded reasonable to herself.
“How many times?”
“What?”
“How many times have you done it?”
“I haven’t.”
“Maya said again.”
“She exaggerates.”
“Sophie?”
Claire was quiet.
Daniel waited.
Finally she said, “Sophie copies Maya.”
“You told Maya I’d never believe her.”
“I never said that.”
“Maya says you did.”
“Well, Maya says a lot of things lately, doesn’t she?”
Daniel put the phone down on the counter.
Claire’s voice came faintly from the speaker.
“Daniel?”
He ended the call.
For two years, Claire had been the person he called when he did not know what to do.
That was the part his mind kept refusing to accommodate.
She had met him at a neighborhood volunteer day after his divorce from Laura became final. Daniel had been helping rebuild a playground fence. Claire had shown up late carrying three coffees and apologized to everyone individually. She worked in office operations for a regional construction company and had the slightly compulsive habit of making lists on whatever paper was near her.
The first time she stayed over, she left a yellow note on his bathroom mirror.
Your shower sounds like it’s dying.
He had laughed for the first time in weeks.
The girls liked her at first.
Sophie especially.
Claire painted her toenails in mismatched colors and let her arrange refrigerator magnets according to rules only Sophie understood. She learned Maya hated scrambled eggs but would eat fried eggs if the edges were crisp. She bought the exact cereal Laura kept at her house because, she said, children already had enough adjustments between two homes.
Daniel had thought that sentence revealed kindness.
Maybe it had.
That was what made everything worse.
At ten thirty, Laura called.
“Maya can’t sleep.”
Daniel sat up on the couch.
“Does she want to talk to me?”
“I asked. She said no.”
The answer landed harder than he expected.
“Okay.”
Laura was quiet.
He could hear a television somewhere in her house.
Then she said, “Sophie says this has happened before.”
“How many times?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Ask Maya.”
“I’m not interrogating them.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
He rubbed his forehead.
Laura said, “The social worker called me.”
“Me too.”
“They’ll probably want to talk to both girls again.”
“Okay.”
“They may want them to stay with me while they figure out what happened.”
Daniel looked toward the patio.
The broken chain still hung from the interior handle. Each time the air conditioner kicked on, the loose piece tapped faintly against the glass.
“I won’t fight that.”
Laura did not answer immediately.
“That’s the first smart thing you’ve said tonight.”
Under other circumstances he would have snapped back.
Instead he said, “Yeah.”
She softened just enough to make the next question harder.
“Did they ever tell you anything else?”
Daniel thought about the last few months.
Maya refusing to go grocery shopping with Claire.
Sophie asking what time he would be home from work.
The bathroom accidents Sophie had started having again after almost a year without them.
Maya begging to go to Laura’s early one Sunday and then claiming she missed a library book she had left there.
Each thing had seemed explainable.
Together they looked different.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
He pressed his thumb into his eye until he saw sparks.
“No. They didn’t tell me anything clear.”
“Or you didn’t hear it clearly?”
Daniel said nothing.
Laura did not apologize.
He did not ask her to.
The next morning, there was a detective card wedged into his front door.
Daniel stared at it for several seconds before picking it up.
He had expected social services.
He had not expected police.
May you like
His first thought was that Claire would lose her job.
His second thought was that thinking about Claire’s job made him a terrible father.
