Chapter 2 - WE DID NOT OPEN IT My first instinct was to walk across the yard and rip the lock apart.
I didn’t.
Not because I was calm.
Because Cecily pulled on my dress and whispered:
“Can we go home?”
That mattered more.
I picked her up.
At five, she was getting heavy.
I barely noticed.
Weston stepped toward us.
“Nadine.”
“Move.”
“We need to talk.”
“Not with her here.”
Harlan said:
“She needs to learn that throwing a tantrum doesn’t get rewarded.”
I turned so quickly Cecily tightened around my neck.
“Do not speak to her.”
“This is my house.”
“And she is my child.”
“Our granddaughter.”
“That did not give you permission to hit her.”
“You hit me.”
There it was.
True.
“I did.”
His eyebrows rose.
He expected denial.
I gave him none.
“I hit you after I watched you hit a five-year-old.”
“That doesn’t make it legal.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
Weston said:
“Everybody needs to calm down.”
I looked at him.
He stopped.
I had never hated that sentence more.
Cecily whispered:
“Molly.”
Her doll still floated in the pool.
I moved toward the edge.
Weston said:
“I’ll get it.”
I did not answer.
He used the pool skimmer to retrieve the doll.
Water poured from her yarn hair.
One painted eye had already begun to smear.
He held Molly toward Cecily.
She would not take her from him.
So I did.
Then I carried Cecily through the house.
Harlan called after me:
“You’re proving my point.”
I did not turn around.
Weston followed us to the driveway.
“Nadine, please.”
I buckled Cecily into her car seat.
Her knees were scraped.
Her cheek was pink.
She held the wet doll against a towel I kept in the trunk.
I shut the rear door.
Then faced my husband.
“What is in that shed?”
“I don’t know everything.”
Not:
Nothing.
Not:
She misunderstood.
I don’t know everything.
My stomach dropped.
“What do you know?”
He looked toward the house.
“Not here.”
“Do you know he takes her toys?”
“Yes.”
The word barely came out.
My whole body became cold.
“How long?”
“Nadine—”
“How long?”
“A few months.”
I slapped one hand against the roof of the car.
Not him.
The car.
“You knew.”
“I knew Dad had been confiscating things.”
“Breaking them?”
“I told him not to.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I knew about one.”
Cecily was watching through the window.
I stepped backward.
“Do not come home tonight.”
“Nadine.”
“Do not come home until I tell you whether I want you there.”
“This is my daughter too.”
“Yes.”
I pointed toward the back seat.
May you like
“That is exactly why your silence is such a problem.”
Then I drove away.
