Chương 4
“Was it also true?”
“Yes.”
They waited.
Inside the room, Maya was awake.
Ethan had finished his shift but had not left yet. His backpack sat under the nurses’ station. He had reheated the same cup of coffee twice and forgotten it both times.
Claire found him staring at the vending machine.
“You know you’re allowed to go home.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“Where you pretend you’re staying because of paperwork.”
“I have paperwork.”
“You always have paperwork.”
He pressed the button for pretzels.
The machine took his money and did not release them.
Claire watched the bag hang from the coil.
“Seems fair.”
Ethan put both hands on the glass.
“If I shake this, does security arrest me?”
“Marcus is busy.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Claire leaned against the wall.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then she said, “I keep hearing the screws hit the tray.”
Ethan stopped looking at the pretzels.
Claire rubbed her palms against her scrub pants.
“I have a six-year-old. Her room is a disaster. I stepped on a plastic horse this morning and yelled loud enough to scare the dog. Then I came here and saw that.”
“You yelling about a toy doesn’t belong in the same sentence.”
“I know.”
“But your brain is putting it there anyway.”
“Yes.”
“That’s because brains are stupid.”
Claire smiled faintly.
“You went to medical school.”
“Still stupid.”
The vending machine suddenly dropped the pretzels.
Both of them jumped.
Claire laughed once.
It sounded wrong in the quiet hall.
Then, because it sounded wrong, she laughed again.
Ethan did too.
A unit clerk looked over at them.
Neither explained.
When Leah was finally allowed into Maya’s room, she stopped two steps inside the doorway.
Maya sat propped against the bed with her right foot wrapped loosely in a soft hospital support instead of the damaged orthopedic boot. Rachel sat beside her.
Leah covered her mouth.
Maya looked at her for several seconds.
Then she said, “Your hair is short.”
Leah began crying again.
She had cut six inches off the previous summer.
“I know.”
“It looks weird.”
Leah laughed through tears.
“Thank you.”
“I liked it long.”
“I did too. It got stuck in a stand mixer.”
Maya frowned.
“For real?”
“Not all the way. Enough.”
Rachel stood.
Maya immediately caught her wrist.
Rachel looked down.
“I’m just moving to the chair.”
Maya released her.
Leah noticed that.
She noticed everything.
The marks on Maya’s shin.
The opened medical packaging.
The absence of the blue boots.
The way Maya watched the door whenever footsteps passed.
Leah took the chair Dana offered.
She did not try to hug her niece.
They talked about a cat named Pickle.
Pickle belonged to Leah’s downstairs neighbor and had once stolen an entire dinner roll from Maya’s plate.
Maya remembered.
For ten minutes they did not speak about Grant.
Then Maya asked, “Did Dad tell you not to come?”
Leah looked toward Dana.
Dana did not rescue her.
“Yes.”
“Why did you listen?”
The question landed with no anger in it.
That made it worse.
Leah rubbed her thumb over a crack in her phone case.
“I was scared I’d make things harder.”
“For who?”
Leah looked at Maya.
“For me, too.”
Maya waited.
Leah swallowed.
“I wish I’d been braver.”
Maya looked at the blanket.
“Dad says people say sorry when they want you to stop being mad.”
“Sometimes they do.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
That got Maya’s attention.
Leah continued, “You can be mad as long as you need.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Okay.”
“I just wanted you to come.”
Leah pressed her lips together.
Rachel looked at the floor.
After a while Maya asked, “Did you bring Pickle?”
“No.”
“You should’ve.”
“He’s not mine.”
“You could steal him.”
Dana said, “Let’s not make crime our family-reunification strategy.”
Maya smiled.
A real one this time.
Small, crooked, and gone quickly.
Leah saw it and did not cry.
That was the first useful thing she managed to do.
By morning, the case had become more complicated.
Grant had not confessed.
He had denied touching the inside of either boot.
He told detectives Maya had been “acting disturbed” since her mother’s death. He claimed she picked at things, hid sharp objects, lied to teachers, and staged incidents to get attention.
When asked why he had shouted, “Don’t touch those boots,” before anyone opened them, he said he had been angry because the hospital staff were damaging expensive medical equipment.
When asked why he had reached for the right boot specifically, he said he had not.
When told the room contained multiple witnesses, he said the witnesses were biased because they had already decided he was abusive.
He demanded a lawyer.
The interview ended.
Marcus told Ethan this in the cafeteria the next morning.
Ethan had come back early despite having slept four hours.
“You shouldn’t be telling me details of an interview,” he said.
Marcus opened a packet of sugar.
“I’m telling you the part relevant to what he said about the medical equipment.”
“That’s still close.”
“You want me to stop?”
“No.”
Marcus poured sugar into coffee that already had too much sugar in it.
“That’s what I figured.”
Ethan looked at him.
“Did they search the house?”
“Warrant’s being reviewed.”
“So not yet.”
“No.”
“And if somebody else has access?”
“We document that.”
“Garage open?”
“I’m not discussing the investigation.”
“You just did.”
“I was younger thirty seconds ago.”
Ethan pushed his untouched breakfast aside.
Marcus glanced at it.
“You going to eat that?”
“No.”
Marcus took the toast.
They sat in silence while hospital employees came and went around them.
A respiratory therapist argued softly on the phone about a car repair. Two residents compared sleep totals as if competing in a contest nobody should win. Somewhere behind the kitchen doors, somebody dropped a stack of trays and swore.
Normal life kept happening.
Ethan resented it for several minutes.
May you like
Then he resented himself for resenting it.
Maya was awake when he returned upstairs.
