Chương 2
Daniel had teased her about it yesterday.
Shoes, Em.
I know.
Apparently she had not known anything worth protecting herself from then.
Or maybe she had.
That thought arrived slowly.
Daniel looked at his daughter.
“How long have you been crying?”
Emma’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Vanessa exhaled impatiently. “She cries whenever she gets caught.”
Emma looked at the floor.
Daniel turned to Vanessa.
“Don’t.”
“Oh, please. Now I’m not allowed to describe what happened?”
“You’re not going to speak for her.”
“I have been speaking for her because you are never here when any of this happens.”
The accusation landed because part of it was true.
Daniel looked back at Emma.
“Did Vanessa hit you?”
Vanessa made a noise of disbelief.
Emma shook her head quickly.
“No.”
“With the belt?”
“No.”
“Has she ever hit you with it?”
“No.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“There.”
Emma stared at the broken plate.
Daniel almost allowed himself to feel relief.
Then he noticed Emma’s breathing.
Short through the nose. Held for a second. Released carefully.
The same breathing she had used at age five before getting a vaccination.
“Has she ever threatened to?”
Emma’s eyes moved toward Vanessa.
Vanessa said, “Daniel, enough.”
Daniel did not look away from his daughter.
“Emma.”
Her lower lip trembled once.
“She just holds it.”
Something in Daniel’s chest went cold.
“How many times?”
Emma shrugged.
It was not a child’s careless shrug.
It was a child trying to make a dangerous answer smaller.
“I don’t know.”
“Once?”
Silence.
“Twice?”
Emma looked down.
Vanessa stepped forward. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. You interrogate her until she gives you the answer you want.”
Daniel moved one foot sideways.
It was a small movement.
Vanessa stopped.
He was still between them.
“She needs to go to her room,” Vanessa said.
“No.”
“She has been throwing things all afternoon.”
Emma whispered, “I didn’t.”
Vanessa turned toward her.
Daniel stepped farther into the line between them.
“Look at me,” he said.
Vanessa did.
“Do not talk to her right now.”
“You don’t get to order me around in my house.”
“I’m not discussing the house.”
“Oh, really? Because I live here too.”
“I know.”
“You don’t sound like you know.”
Daniel felt Emma’s fingers curl into the fabric at his lower back again.
He had never noticed her doing that before.
He wondered how many things he had never noticed.
Vanessa saw him glance downward.
Her voice changed.
Not softer exactly, but more controlled.
“Daniel, she broke your mother’s serving bowl.”
He looked at the counter.
Near the cooktop sat a cardboard box lined with a dish towel. Inside were pieces of blue-and-white ceramic.
For an instant, the sight carried him twenty-five years backward: his mother at Thanksgiving, lifting that bowl with both hands because she had arthritis in her wrists; mashed potatoes steaming against the faded blue rim.
His mother had died six years earlier.
Daniel had kept very little from her house.
The bowl was one of the few things he had insisted on bringing into this kitchen.
He looked at Emma.
Her face had changed again.
Guilt.
Or fear that looked like guilt.
Vanessa saw it too.
“See?”
Emma shook her head.
“I didn’t.”
“You were the only one in here.”
“No.”
“You told me you were.”
“I said I came in here.”
“After I heard it break.”
Emma’s voice became smaller. “I came because I heard it.”
Vanessa laughed once. “Convenient.”
Daniel looked from his daughter to the box.
“How did it break?”
“I found it on the floor,” Vanessa said.
“I asked Emma.”
“She doesn’t know because apparently invisible people now break dishes.”
Daniel lifted one hand.
Vanessa stopped talking.
Emma’s eyes stayed on the box.
“I heard something.”
“What?”
“A crash.”
“Where were you?”
“In the TV room.”
“What were you doing?”
“Drawing.”
“Did you come in right away?”
She nodded.
“Was Vanessa here?”
Another pause.
Vanessa’s jaw tightened.
Emma saw it.
“No,” Emma said.
Daniel watched her.
He knew that pause.
Every parent knows certain pauses in their child. The pause before a lie about brushing teeth. The pause before admitting someone had said a bad word at school. The pause before asking for money.
This was none of those.
This was calculation.
Not about whether to lie.
About which answer was safest.
Daniel stood.
“We’re leaving.”
Vanessa blinked. “What?”
“I’m taking Emma out.”
“You’re leaving because she broke a bowl?”
“I’m leaving because she’s afraid to answer me while you’re standing in the room.”
“That is insane.”
“Maybe.”
“You are teaching her that if she cries hard enough, she can turn us against each other.”
Daniel bent and picked up Emma’s sandals from beneath a stool. One was upside down. There was dried mud along the strap.
“Put these on.”
Emma looked at Vanessa.
Daniel crouched.
“Em.”
She turned back to him.
“Shoes.”
Her fingers shook while she pushed her feet into them.
Vanessa watched.
“So that’s it?”
“For tonight.”
“No. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Use that calm voice like this is already decided.”
Daniel slipped his phone from his pocket.
The security app showed a motion alert from forty-two minutes earlier, then another, then seven more.
He opened the first clip.
Vanessa moved toward him.
He raised his eyes.
She stopped.
The video loaded.
The angle covered most of the kitchen from above the entrance.
The sound was weak.
Daniel turned up the volume.
Onscreen, the kitchen was empty.
The timestamp read 4:17 p.m.
Vanessa entered.
Not in the navy dress she wore now.
She was still in cream slacks and a gray blouse.
Daniel glanced at her.
She looked away.
Onscreen, Vanessa carried his mother’s serving bowl from the dining room.
She set it on the island.
For ten seconds she did nothing.
Then she took her phone from her pocket and read something.
Her shoulders stiffened.
She placed the phone facedown.
She picked up the bowl.
May you like
And threw it onto the floor.
Emma made a sound behind Daniel.
