Chương 5
Rachel shifted closer. “You were the one who needed help.”
“Grandma said everyone was tired of waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“For me to stop saying my mouth felt funny.”
Rachel looked toward the curtain, making sure no one stood outside.
“What happened before you ate the bar?”
Emma’s forehead tightened.
“Grandma said it was safe.”
“Did she show you the package?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
Emma nodded.
“What did she say?”
“That I was acting like you.”
The answer landed quietly.
Rachel had been called dramatic, rigid, exhausting, controlling, impossible to please. Acting like Rachel was not a neutral description in their family. It was a warning.
“Did Aunt Rebecca hear her?”
“She was putting bags in the car.”
“Did she hear you say your mouth felt strange?”
“I think so.”
“Okay.” Rachel stopped herself before asking anything else. The officer had told her not to question the children. Emma was her child, but she was also a witness now, a word Rachel hated.
“Am I in trouble?” Emma asked.
“No.”
“Is Grandma?”
Rachel took a breath. “Adults are responsible for what they do. Other adults may need to decide what happens next.”
Emma considered that.
“Like school detention?”
“Not exactly.”
“Will she go to jail?”
“I don’t know.”
Emma looked relieved and frightened at the same time.
“Do you want her to?”
Rachel felt the old family reflex rise inside her—the urge to answer in a way that protected Diane from being disliked, even here, even now.
“I want you safe,” she said. “I want the truth told. I don’t know yet what I want after that.”
Emma turned her face toward the window.
The rain had stopped. The glass reflected the hospital bed, the pale blanket, and Rachel’s navy blouse wrinkled from a night of sitting. Her hair had fallen out of the bun. She looked older than she had the day before, though nothing about her face had changed.
“I don’t want Grandma to hate me,” Emma whispered.
Rachel bent over their joined hands.
“You are not responsible for making grown-ups comfortable with the truth.”
The sentence sounded better than Rachel felt. She wished someone had told her the same thing twenty years earlier.
By eight, the room brightened with gray morning light. A respiratory therapist came in, followed by a doctor who explained that Emma would remain under observation through the day. Her breathing had improved, but the delayed symptoms made the team cautious.
Rachel called her supervisor, Dana, from the hallway.
Dana answered on the third ring with a sleepy hello.
“I’m at County Memorial with Emma.”
“What happened?”
Rachel gave the briefest version she could.
“Oh my God.”
“She’s stable.”
“Don’t come in Monday.”
“I may need more than Monday.”
“Then take more than Monday.”
Rachel leaned against the wall. “I used most of my paid leave when she had pneumonia.”
“We’ll sort it out.”
Dana was practical by nature. At work, she kept spare batteries, antacids, and three kinds of tape in the bottom drawer of her desk. She did not make promises she could not keep.
“I’m sorry,” Rachel said.
“For what?”
“Scheduling.”
“Rachel.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do. Stop apologizing to me and go sit with your kid.”
Rachel laughed once, an unexpected sound that ended too close to a sob.
“Okay.”
When she returned to the room, Emma was watching a cooking show with the sound low. A chef folded chocolate into batter while a caption identified ingredients Rachel could not hear.
Emma changed the channel.
“You don’t have to,” Rachel said.
“I don’t like him.”
“You liked him last week.”
“He says ‘decadent’ too much.”
Rachel sat down.
That was the first ordinary thing Emma had said since the driveway, and Rachel held it carefully in her mind.
At nine thirty, Daniel arrived at the hospital without Noah and Lila. He stood near the nurses’ station in a navy rain jacket, his hair damp at the temples. Rachel had seen him only twice since the divorce, both times at children’s birthday parties where he and Rebecca stayed at opposite sides of the room.
He stopped several feet from her.
“I’m not here to upset Emma.”
“She’s sleeping.”
“Rebecca wouldn’t let me pick up the kids last night. The police did.”
Rachel tried to understand. “The police took them to you?”
“They came to the house. She told them I was dangerous.”
“Are you?”
The question slipped out before Rachel could soften it.
Daniel’s mouth tightened, then relaxed.
“No. But I’m glad you asked.”
He showed her a message on his phone from a county worker confirming that Noah and Lila were temporarily in his care while the incident was reviewed. The language was cautious. Nothing in it declared Rebecca guilty or Daniel safe forever.
“Where is Rebecca?” Rachel asked.
“At home, I think. Your mother too.”
Rachel pictured them in Rebecca’s kitchen composing a unified version of the day.
“Did Noah say anything?”
Daniel looked toward Emma’s room.
“He said he saw Diane put the red bag on top of the refrigerator.”
Rachel’s stomach tightened.
“He told you that?”
“He told the officer. I didn’t ask him for details.”
“Good.”
“He also said Rebecca told them to get in the car because you were about to make everything worse.”
Rachel looked away.
A woman pushed a wheelchair down the hall. The patient in it wore bright-yellow socks and held a vase of flowers against her chest.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“Noah thinks he should have grabbed the bag.”
“He’s eleven.”
“He knows that. He also knows where it was.”
“Tell him it wasn’t his job.”
“I have.”
“Tell him again.”
“I will.”
He studied her for a moment. “Rebecca says you tried to hit the SUV.”
“I hit the window.”
“She says she thought you might pull open the door while she was moving.”
“She was leaving my child on the floor.”
“I’m not defending her.”
May you like
“It sounds like you are.”
“It sounds like I’ve spent six years learning that every sentence involving Rebecca needs three versions before you find the useful one.”
