Chương 8
“You’re giving me both sides,” she said.
“There aren’t only two.”
“No,” Marisol agreed.
Andrew’s interview lasted longer. When he came out, his face looked drawn.
“What did she ask?” Jenna said.
“Whether I thought my mother intended to hurt Hannah.”
“What did you say?”
“That I don’t think she intended the blister. I think she intended to punish her by leaving her behind.”
Jenna had not phrased it that way before.
“Do you believe that?”
“Yes.”
He looked toward the closed interview room.
“I think Mom wanted Hannah to feel what happened when she inconvenienced people.”
The idea entered Jenna slowly because it fit too well.
At the parade, Hannah had not merely been forgotten. She had been given a lesson.
That night Jenna dreamed of the family seating area. In the dream, every chair was occupied by someone she knew, but all their faces turned away as she called Hannah’s name. She woke with her hand gripping the sheet.
Andrew slept on his side, facing her.
She whispered, “I think you’re right.”
He opened his eyes.
“About what?”
“She was teaching her.”
Andrew was awake immediately.
Jenna sat up. “Brenda didn’t think the chairs were dangerous. That’s why she doesn’t understand the report. In her mind, she left Hannah somewhere safe so Hannah would learn not to slow everyone down.”
Andrew stared into the dark.
“That’s what my father did to me once,” he said.
Jenna waited.
“At a baseball tournament. I forgot my glove in the hotel. He made me walk back alone.”
“How old were you?”
“Ten. Maybe eleven.”
“Did your mother know?”
“She said he was teaching responsibility.”
Jenna reached for his hand beneath the blanket.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“I haven’t thought about it in years.”
The words were probably true. Memory did not arrive in orderly files. It waited for a similar wound.
Andrew rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.
“I found the hotel,” he said. “I got the glove. I was proud afterward.”
“Were you safe?”
“No.”
They lay awake until the air conditioner cycled off and the house grew quiet enough to hear a dog scratching at a door next door.
Dennis came to see Andrew at work on Thursday.
Andrew worked for a commercial landscaping company in an office behind a yard full of trailers, mowers, and stacks of mulch. Dennis arrived at eleven forty without calling. He stood in the reception area wearing khaki shorts and the same sunglasses from the parade.
Andrew took him into a small conference room.
Dennis did not sit.
“Your mother had her interview,” he said.
“I know.”
“She hasn’t slept.”
Andrew closed the door. “What do you want me to do?”
“Tell them this was blown out of proportion.”
“Was it?”
Dennis removed his sunglasses. The skin beneath his eyes was pale.
“She should not have left Hannah there.”
“That’s different from what you said before.”
“I’m saying it now.”
“Why?”
“Because Marisol woman asked direct questions.”
“Her name is Ms. Vega.”
Dennis looked toward the window. Outside, an employee reversed a trailer with a series of beeps.
“She asked whether your mother saw Hannah when she went back for the bag.”
Andrew waited.
Dennis sat at last.
“She did.”
The beeping outside continued. Andrew counted four tones before speaking.
“What happened?”
“Your mother went back because she left her phone charger in the handbag.”
“She saw Hannah sitting there?”
“Yes.”
“Was Hannah crying?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were with Mom?”
“I was across the street. I could see her by the chairs.”
“Did she talk to Hannah?”
Dennis rubbed both hands over his knees.
“She leaned down. I couldn’t hear.”
“Then what?”
“She came back.”
“Without Hannah.”
“Yes.”
Andrew stood so quickly that the chair legs scraped.
Dennis lifted a hand. “She believed Hannah was better off sitting. Her foot hurt. The crowd was thick. She was going to come back after Carter got on the float.”
“Did she tell you she’d seen her?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing to us.”
“I didn’t know Jenna was looking.”
“Dad.”
“I didn’t.”
“You were there when Jenna found her.”
“Everything happened fast.”
“It happened for over an hour.”
Dennis’s face hardened. “Do not talk to me like I left her.”
“You helped.”
“I did not.”
“You stood there while Mom lied.”
“I didn’t know what she was saying to you.”
“You knew enough.”
Dennis rose.
“I came here because I was trying to be honest.”
“No. You came because the county already knows Mom went back, and you don’t want to be caught lying.”
Dennis flinched.
The reaction was small but sufficient.
“How do they know?” Andrew asked.
Dennis looked away.
“Teresa,” Andrew said. “The woman by the chairs saw her.”
“I don’t know.”
“You told Ms. Vega.”
“I answered the questions.”
“After you realized there was a witness.”
Dennis put on his sunglasses. “You think people are brave on command. They aren’t.”
“No. I think children should not pay for adult cowardice.”
Dennis reached for the door.
“Your mother is not a monster.”
“I never said she was.”
“That’s how you’re treating her.”
Andrew’s hand tightened on the back of the chair.
“I’m treating her like an adult who made a choice.”
Dennis opened the door.
Before leaving, he said, “You should remember that you may want forgiveness someday.”
Andrew watched him walk past the receptionist and out into the bright yard.
At home that evening, he told Jenna the entire conversation.
She listened without interrupting. When he finished, she walked to the hall closet, took the broken flag from the high shelf, and placed it on the dining table.
They had hidden it after the parade because Hannah became quiet whenever she saw it.
The wood had snapped just below the fabric. One edge of the flag was dirty. A small dark spot near the white stripes might have been blood or melted chocolate from the parade basket.
“She was there,” Jenna said.
May you like
Andrew sat down.
“She saw her.”
