Chương 7
Rachel stared at them for so long that the hygienist beside her asked if she was all right.
She carried them to the dumpster.
Then she called police.
The florist had taken the order in cash from a man wearing a baseball cap.
The employee could not confidently identify Grant from a photograph.
No violation could be charged.
That evening Rachel became furious with Maya.
Not because Maya had done anything.
Because Maya could not.
“What is the point of the order if he can just get somebody else to scare me?”
“I understand.”
“No, you don't.”
“You're right.”
“Stop saying that.”
Maya stood outside the motel room while Rachel paced.
Ethan was inside with Laura watching a wildlife documentary too loudly.
Rachel folded her arms.
“You people told me to document everything. I'm documenting. I have screenshots, dates, photos, call logs. I have a goddamn spreadsheet.”
“That helps.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Maya did not answer quickly enough.
Rachel laughed bitterly.
“Exactly.”
“Rachel—”
“No. You know what's sick? Before this, I thought police showed up, somebody got arrested, and then the dangerous person had to stay away.”
“Sometimes they do.”
“Sometimes.”
“Yes.”
Rachel looked across the parking lot.
A man in pajama pants was trying to make a vending machine accept a wrinkled dollar.
She watched him flatten it against his thigh.
“I have spent twelve days thinking every gray car is his.”
Maya followed her gaze.
“I started hating Ethan's backpack.”
Maya looked back at her.
Rachel's face twisted with shame.
“It's so bright. I see it and I see him running down the street. I see him bringing you back. I know that saved me, and I still look at that stupid backpack and wish he'd never had to wear it.”
Maya said nothing.
Rachel breathed in through her nose.
“He sleeps with it beside the bed.”
“I didn't know.”
“He put snacks in it. Socks. His inhaler. Twenty-three dollars from his piggy bank.”
Maya's throat tightened.
“A toothbrush?”
“No.”
That almost made Rachel smile.
“He forgot the toothbrush.”
“That's a good sign.”
“What?”
“He's still nine.”
Rachel's eyes closed briefly.
The motel room door opened.
Ethan stood there.
“What about me being nine?”
Rachel turned.
“Nothing.”
He looked at both women.
“You're bad at lying.”
“Yes,” Rachel said. “Apparently.”
He held out a package of motel crackers to Maya.
She took it.
“Thanks.”
“They're stale.”
“Then why are you giving them to me?”
“I don't like them.”
Rachel laughed.
Ethan went back inside.
The door shut.
Maya looked at the crackers.
Rachel said, “That's basically affection from him now.”
“I'll treasure them.”
Three weeks after the arrest, the landlord changed the locks.
Rachel and Ethan went home.
Laura stayed for four more days.
The first night, Rachel slept on the couch with every downstairs light on.
Ethan slept in a blanket pile beside her.
At two in the morning Rachel woke because the furnace clicked.
Her heart slammed so violently she tasted metal.
She sat up.
The house remained still.
Ethan snored softly.
Rachel went to the kitchen and drank water from the tap.
On the refrigerator, a photograph of Grant was still held beneath a magnet shaped like a taco.
She had forgotten it.
The picture showed the three of them at a minor-league baseball game the previous summer. Grant wore sunglasses. Ethan held cotton candy. Rachel was laughing at something outside the frame.
She took the photograph down.
For a moment she could not tear it.
That frightened her more than if she had wanted to keep it.
She put it in a drawer.
At breakfast, Ethan asked where it went.
“I put it away.”
“Why didn't you throw it out?”
Rachel poured milk into his cereal.
“Because I wasn't ready.”
He frowned.
“Do you miss him?”
The milk carton remained in her hand.
“Sometimes.”
Ethan looked horrified.
Rachel put the carton down.
“That doesn't mean I want him back.”
“How can you miss him?”
“Because he wasn't awful every second.”
Ethan pushed a Cheerio beneath the milk with his spoon.
“He fixed my bike.”
“Yeah.”
“And he made those pancakes.”
“Terrible pancakes.”
“They were good.”
“They were raw in the middle.”
“I liked them.”
Rachel sat opposite him.
Ethan's voice dropped.
“If he's bad, why were the pancakes good?”
Rachel stared at her son.
There were parenting questions no book prepared anyone to answer because they sounded ridiculous until they were not.
“Because bad things somebody does don't erase every normal thing they ever did,” she said. “And the normal things don't erase the bad things.”
Ethan thought about that.
“So I can miss the pancakes?”
“Yes.”
“Not him.”
“You can feel whatever you feel.”
“I don't miss him.”
Rachel nodded.
Ethan ate another spoonful.
“Maybe a little.”
Rachel looked down at her hands.
“Me too.”
He seemed relieved.
That was the morning Rachel decided to testify.
Not because Maya had convinced her.
Not because the prosecutor had.
Not because the victim advocate had explained conviction rates or protection orders.
Because she had heard herself tell Ethan that contradictory truths could exist together, and she understood she had been waiting for Grant to become simple.
He never would.
She could miss the man who fixed Ethan's bike and still tell a judge about the man who wedged a chair beneath her door.
She called Nina after dropping Ethan at school.
“I'll do it.”
Nina said, “Okay.”
Rachel almost laughed.
“That sounds underwhelming.”
“I don't want you to think I'm celebrating.”
“Why not?”
“Because testifying is hard.”
Rachel looked at traffic through her windshield.
“Everything is hard lately.”
“I know.”
“I hate when people say that.”
Nina paused.
“Then I take it back.”
Rachel smiled despite herself.
“Thank you.”
Grant's attorney began negotiating.
If he pleaded to a reduced count of unlawful restraint and accepted probation, counseling, and an extended protection order, the assault charge might be dismissed.
Rachel was furious.
Then relieved.
May you like
Then furious that she was relieved.
She wanted a trial until Nina explained what a trial would require.
