Chương 4
The tear tracks had dried into tight lines on her cheeks. Her long dark-brown hair had flattened on one side and tangled at the ends. She looked pale, but not in the graceful way grief looked in photographs. She looked oily and stunned, with mascara collected beneath one eye.
She washed Grant’s smell from her hands.
When she returned, Lily was awake.
Her eyes followed Claire across the room. Confusion remained, but it had lost its dreamlike softness.
“Mom?”
“I’m here.”
“Where’s Dad?”
Claire sat quickly and took her hand.
Lily’s lips were dry. Claire used the damp sponge the nurse had shown her, touching it carefully to the corners of her mouth.
“Detective Ortiz needed to talk to him.”
“Because of the car?”
“Yes.”
“Was it Vanessa?”
Claire stopped.
Lily closed her eyes.
“Who told you Vanessa’s name?” Claire asked.
No answer.
“Lily?”
“I’m tired.”
“I know. You don’t have to talk now.”
“Dad knew her.”
The monitor quickened again, not enough to alarm.
Claire forced herself not to squeeze Lily’s hand. “From work?”
Lily gave the smallest nod.
“What happened yesterday?”
“I don’t remember.”
“That’s okay.”
“I remember the garage.”
Claire waited.
Lily’s eyes moved toward the door. “Is he coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie.”
The words were weak, but the irritation in them was so familiar that Claire felt a sharp, grateful ache. Lily hated being managed. At five, she had rejected the phrase maybe later as “a lie wearing a hat.”
“I don’t know whether the hospital will let him come back,” Claire said. “I don’t know what the police will do. I don’t know what he did yet.”
“He knew.”
“You asked him that.”
“He looked at the chair.”
Claire’s throat tightened. “Yes.”
“He does that.”
“What?”
“When he lies. He looks at the thing he wishes was a door.”
Lily’s eyelids fluttered.
Claire wanted to ask who had authorized her departure from school, why she had gone to Northstar, what Vanessa had said, and whether the SUV had come toward her deliberately. The questions crowded so close that she could barely breathe around them.
Instead she said, “You don’t have to protect anybody.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Good.”
“I was mad at him.”
“That’s allowed.”
“You always say not to go to bed mad.”
“I’ve said a lot of things that sounded better before yesterday.”
Lily’s mouth moved slightly. It might have been an attempt at a smile.
The surgeon arrived before Claire could ask anything else. Dr. Kavita Shah was small, fast-moving, and direct. She examined Lily’s abdomen, asked her to move her toes, checked her pupils, and explained that the surgery had controlled internal bleeding and repaired damage to the spleen and small intestine. Lily would remain in intensive care until her blood pressure and oxygen levels were reliably stable.
“Am I going to die?” Lily asked.
Dr. Shah stopped adjusting the blanket.
“No,” she said. “I do not expect you to die.”
Claire gripped the bed rail.
The surgeon looked at Lily, not at Claire. “You are badly hurt. Recovery will be uncomfortable. There can be complications, and we are watching for them. But you came through surgery, your numbers are improving, and you are here talking to me. Those are good things.”
“Can I dance?”
“Not today.”
“Ever?”
“That depends on healing, physical therapy, and how determined you are to annoy your mother.”
Lily’s eyes moved to Claire. “Pretty determined.”
“Then I would not bet against you.”
After the exam, Dr. Shah asked Claire to step into the hall. The request made Lily tense immediately.
“I’ll be right outside the glass,” Claire said.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
In the hallway, the surgeon folded her arms. “Her memory may return in pieces. Do not pressure her.”
“I haven’t.”
“I believe you. Other people may.”
“The police?”
“Police, lawyers, relatives, anyone who thinks a child’s memory is a box they can shake until the right answer falls out.”
Claire glanced through the glass. Lily was watching them.
“Can Detective Ortiz talk to her?”
“Not today. Perhaps tomorrow, with a specialist present, if Lily wants to and if she remains stable.”
“What about her father?”
Dr. Shah’s expression gave nothing away. “The hospital received notice that law enforcement does not currently prohibit contact. However, you are both legal guardians unless a court says otherwise.”
“So he can walk in?”
“Not if his presence creates a medical risk or violates safety rules. You can ask security to restrict access while we clarify the situation.”
Claire had never before considered herself a person who could ban Grant from a room containing their daughter. Even after the hotel receipt, even after nights when he came home smelling of someone else’s expensive restaurant and explained that clients did not eat at six like suburban families, she had treated access to Lily as sacred.
Grant could disappoint Claire. He could not be made smaller in Lily’s eyes.
That had been one of Claire’s rules.
She looked at her daughter through the glass. Lily was studying the empty visitor chair.
“Restrict him,” Claire said.
The words closed one path and opened a darker one.
Dr. Shah nodded. “Family services can document your request.”
Grant called twenty minutes later.
Claire watched his name pulse across her screen until the call ended. It began again almost immediately.
Naomi came in to silence an IV alarm. “You don’t have to answer.”
“He’ll keep calling.”
“Phones have buttons for that.”
On the third call, Claire stepped into the bathroom and answered.
“Where are you?” she asked.
There was a breath, then a man’s voice behind Grant saying something she could not make out.
“At the central district,” Grant said. “They asked questions. I’m leaving now.”
“You’re not coming here.”
“Claire.”
“I told the hospital not to let you in.”
“You can’t do that.”
“I did.”
“Lily needs both of us.”
“She needed you yesterday at eleven thirty-four.”
Silence.
May you like
Grant exhaled slowly. “I can explain.”
“Did you know Vanessa hit her before you called me?”
