Chương 6
“I said a really bad thing.”
“I saw.”
Her hand stopped moving.
“You saw the camera?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled immediately.
“I said sorry.”
“I saw that too.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“I believe you.”
“She said I always ruin everything because I make you sad.”
Daniel went still.
“When did she say that?”
Emma’s eyes shifted toward the door.
He remembered Leah’s warning.
Not tonight.
He took a breath.
“You don’t have to tell me everything now.”
Emma looked surprised.
“Okay.”
“You’re safe here.”
“Are you staying?”
“Yes.”
“In this room?”
“If you want.”
She nodded.
Daniel pulled the desk chair closer to the bed.
“I can sleep there.”
Emma frowned at it.
“That chair hurts.”
“You’ve slept in it?”
“No. It looks like it hurts.”
“It does.”
“There’s room.”
She moved closer to Murphy, leaving perhaps twelve inches of mattress.
Daniel stared.
“That is not room.”
“It is if you’re skinny.”
“I have bad news.”
A tiny laugh escaped her.
It sounded accidental.
Daniel sat on the edge of the bed until she fell asleep.
At three in the morning, he woke with his neck twisted against the headboard and Emma’s foot against his ribs.
Murphy was snoring on the floor.
For perhaps five seconds, Daniel forgot why they were there.
Then his phone screen lit on the nightstand.
Nine messages from Vanessa.
He did not read them.
Not yet.
Emma slept with one hand closed around the back of his shirt.
In the morning, she asked for pancakes.
Leah burned the first batch.
Daniel usually would have mocked her for it. Instead he ate one almost black pancake without comment.
Leah watched him.
“You’re scaring me.”
“What?”
“You just ate that.”
Emma looked at his plate.
“It’s really burned.”
“I noticed.”
“You don’t have to eat bad food because you’re sad,” she said.
Daniel put down his fork.
Leah looked toward the coffee maker.
He reached across the table and touched Emma’s hand.
“That is excellent advice.”
She resumed cutting her pancake.
For a few minutes, the morning became ordinary.
Murphy begged.
Leah complained that people who claimed dogs did not understand language had never owned a Labrador.
Emma poured too much syrup and tried to hide it by moving a strawberry over the puddle.
Daniel answered two work emails before realizing what he was doing and turned his phone facedown.
Then Emma said, “Do I have to go to school?”
The question brought the room back.
Daniel glanced at the clock.
It was Thursday.
“I think keeping things normal might be good.”
Emma’s fork slowed.
“Will Vanessa pick me up?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
The answer came too fast.
Daniel corrected himself.
“I’ll pick you up. If something changes, Aunt Leah will.”
Emma nodded.
“Okay.”
Leah waited until Emma went upstairs to brush her teeth.
“You need to tell the school something.”
“I know.”
“Not everything at the front desk.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I know.”
“Good. Very reassuring.”
Daniel rubbed his jaw.
“I’m going to call Dr. Harris.”
Emma’s pediatrician had referred them to a child therapist after Rachel died. Emma had gone weekly for eight months, then monthly, then stopped when she seemed steadier.
“Call her,” Leah said.
“And an attorney.”
“Yes.”
“And I need to talk to Vanessa.”
“Not alone.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I’m not afraid of her.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
“I know.”
Leah pointed at him with her coffee cup.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Trying to turn this into logistics.”
He almost argued.
Then Emma came downstairs wearing one of Leah’s old zip-up hoodies over her clothes.
The sleeves reached past her fingers.
“Ready,” she said.
Daniel drove her to school.
At the curb, Emma did not open the door.
Children passed on the sidewalk carrying backpacks and poster boards. A crossing guard in a fluorescent vest raised one hand at an SUV.
Daniel waited.
Emma looked straight ahead.
“Dad?”
“Yeah.”
“If somebody asks what happened, do I have to tell?”
He gripped the steering wheel.
“You don’t have to tell other kids anything.”
“What about teachers?”
“You can tell them the truth.”
“All of it?”
“If you want to.”
She picked at a loose thread on the borrowed sleeve.
“What if Vanessa gets in trouble?”
Daniel understood then that Emma had already learned one of childhood’s worst confusions: that telling the truth about an adult could feel like causing the adult’s consequences.
“You are not responsible for what happens because you tell the truth.”
“But what if I said the bad thing first?”
“The thing about wishing she was dead?”
Emma nodded.
“You are responsible for saying that. You apologized. We can talk about why it was hurtful.”
She looked at him.
“You can be responsible for your part without being responsible for hers.”
Emma considered this.
“That’s confusing.”
“Yes.”
“Do grown-ups understand it?”
“Not as often as they should.”
She looked toward the school doors.
Then back at him.
“Are you going home?”
“Not to stay.”
“Are you going to see her?”
“Yes.”
Her face tightened.
Daniel waited.
“Can you not tell her I told you about the other stuff yet?”
His stomach dropped.
“What other stuff?”
Emma looked away.
The crossing guard blew a whistle.
Daniel could hear Leah in his head.
Be her father.
Not an investigator.
“You don’t have to answer now,” he said.
Emma’s shoulders loosened slightly.
“Okay.”
“Who at school do you feel safe talking to?”
“Ms. Alvarez.”
Her teacher.
“And Mrs. Grant.”
The counselor.
“Would you like me to walk in with you and tell Mrs. Grant you had a hard night?”
Emma nodded.
So he did.
Mrs. Grant was in her forties, with reading glasses hanging from a bright red cord and the calm expression of someone accustomed to children arriving with problems adults had created.
May you like
Daniel told her only that there had been a frightening confrontation at home involving Emma’s stepmother and that Emma would be staying elsewhere.
Mrs. Grant asked Emma whether she felt safe going to class.
