Chương 2
He sat with the children on the sectional.
Lily would not release him.
Owen sat close enough that their legs touched. His hair had been flattened on one side, as though he had slept badly or run his hands over it too many times. He stared at Daniel’s silver watch.
“You came home early,” he said.
“My meeting ended.”
It was not quite true. Daniel had left before the meeting ended.
He had spent the first hour at the hotel conference table watching numbers change across a screen while his phone vibrated twice in his pocket. Claire’s name had appeared both times. He had silenced the calls because she had sent four irritated messages that morning about the toys and because he was tired of discussing the house while trying to close a deal. Twenty minutes later, Owen had sent a message consisting of a single period.
Daniel had stared at it.
Owen sometimes sent blank messages when Lily grabbed his tablet. He sometimes hit the wrong button. There were several harmless explanations, and Daniel had chosen each of them in turn until none felt convincing.
He had closed his laptop, told the men at the table that something had come up, and left before anyone could ask what.
Now Owen was looking at him as if his arrival required an explanation more complicated than luck.
“I should have been here sooner,” Daniel said.
Lily’s breath hitched.
Daniel rubbed a hand over her back. He felt every small ridge of her spine beneath the lavender fabric.
“Did she touch either of you with the hanger?”
Owen shook his head.
Lily did not move.
“Lily?”
“No.”
Her voice was muffled against his shirt.
“Did she touch you with anything else?”
Another shake of the head.
“Did anyone get hurt?”
“No,” Owen said quickly. “She didn’t hit us.”
The speed of his answer bothered Daniel.
He kept his voice even. “Tell me what happened.”
Owen looked toward the archway.
Claire was not visible from where they sat, but the house carried sound. A heel on marble. A cabinet door. Water running in the kitchen. In a place this large, privacy was often an illusion created by distance.
Daniel shifted so his body blocked the children’s view of the hall.
“You’re not in trouble,” he said.
“We made the mess,” Owen replied.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“We were going to clean it.”
“Okay.”
“She told us before.”
“Before what?”
Owen pressed his lips together. His eyes shone, but he blinked slowly and kept the tears from falling. It was an expression Daniel recognized from photographs of himself at that age, which made him want to look away.
“We took the castle out,” Owen said. “Lily wanted the princess pieces, but they were in the bottom bin, so everything came out. Then Claire said we had ten minutes. I was putting the wheels back in the car box, and Lily couldn’t find the rabbit’s ribbon.”
Lily lifted the stuffed animal. A faded lavender ribbon hung loose around its neck.
“I found it,” she whispered.
“I see that.”
“Claire said the room looked disgusting,” Owen continued. “She said she was tired of asking. She told Lily to stop crying because nobody had done anything to her.”
Daniel’s hand slowed on Lily’s back.
“Then what?”
“She picked up the hanger.”
“From where?”
“The suitcase place.”
The dark console in the foyer had become a temporary landing spot for Daniel’s dry cleaning the previous evening. He had left two suit bags draped over a chair before leaving for the hotel. One of the bags must have slipped or been opened. The hanger had come from his clothes.
That detail landed with an absurd weight. He pictured himself taking off his jacket, checking an email, promising Claire he would move the bags later, then forgetting them.
Owen rubbed his palms against his trousers. “She said maybe we needed to learn what rules mean.”
“Did she say what she was going to do with the hanger?”
“No.”
“Did she raise it before you stood in front of Lily?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you stand there?”
Owen finally looked at him.
“Because she was looking at Lily.”
Lily began to cry without making any sound. Tears moved over her cheeks and disappeared into Daniel’s shirt.
He pulled them both closer and looked toward the shelves because he did not trust his face. On the top shelf sat a family photograph from six months earlier. Claire had chosen the clothes. Navy for the boys, lavender for Lily, black for herself. The photographer had asked everyone to lean closer. Claire’s hand rested on Lily’s shoulder, light and elegant, and Lily had smiled.
Daniel tried to remember whether the smile had reached her eyes.
From the foyer came the scrape of the hanger being lifted from the marble.
Daniel stood so quickly that Lily clung tighter.
“Stay here.”
“No,” Owen said.
The word came with a panic he had tried to hide until then.
Daniel sat back down.
“All right,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”
He carried Lily and kept Owen beside him as they returned to the foyer.
Claire was near the console, holding the hanger by its hook.
Daniel stopped beneath the archway. “Put it down.”
She looked at him as though he had accused her of holding a knife.
“I was picking it up.”
“Put it on the console.”
“For God’s sake, Daniel.”
“Put it down.”
The children remained partly behind him. Claire saw them there. Her face changed, first with embarrassment and then with anger at being embarrassed.
She placed the hanger flat on the dark wood.
The soft sound of it touching the console made Lily hide her face again.
Claire noticed.
Something uncertain crossed her expression, but it vanished beneath a frown.
“Can we speak privately?”
“No.”
“You want to do this in front of them?”
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“I’m not leaving them alone.”
“I’m not asking you to leave them alone. They can stay in the family room.”
