“Where is Otis?”
“In the mud room.”
He stood.
Ellie grabbed him.
“I’m checking.”
He took her hand instead.
Together they walked through the side hallway.
Otis, a ten-year-old golden retriever, lay inside the mud room behind a closed baby gate.
The gate was new.
Grant frowned.
Otis stood, tail wagging.
Ellie opened it.
The dog rushed out.
He licked her hands.
Then Grant’s.
Nothing physically wrong.
Grant looked at the door.
A note had been taped to it.
KEEP DOG SEPARATED UNTIL AFTER GALA. HAIR ON FORMAL CLOTHING.
Marissa’s handwriting.
Grant ripped it down.
Otis followed Ellie back into the kitchen.
The dog stopped beside the empty feeding station.
Sniffed.
Looked confused.
Ellie clutched the bowl again.
Grant gently took it from her.
“Can I have this?”
She hesitated.
That alone told him what the object had become.
“Why?”
“I want to wash it.”
“It’s clean.”
“I know.”
He crouched.
“You don’t have to hold it anymore.”
Her fingers loosened.
Grant set it in the sink.
Then picked up his phone.
His first instinct was to call Marissa.
Demand she come home.
Scream.
He stopped.
Anger wanted confrontation.
His daughter needed information first.
“Has this happened before?”
Ellie looked toward the sink.
“Not the bowl.”
Grant’s stomach tightened.
“What has happened before?”
She twisted one pajama sleeve around her fingers.
“Time-outs.”
“Okay.”
“Closet.”
Grant’s face changed.
“What closet?”
“The coat one.”
He stared toward the hallway.
“What happens in the closet?”
“She says I sit until I’m calm.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“With the door closed?”
Ellie nodded.
“Locked?”
“I don’t think.”
Grant could barely breathe.
“Dark?”
“There’s a light.”
That answer should not have relieved him.
It did.
He hated himself for being relieved by degrees of wrong.
“What else?”
“She makes me eat upstairs sometimes.”
“Why?”
“If I talk too much.”
“What do you talk about?”
Ellie gave him the answer he already expected.
“Mom.”
Grant looked toward the ceiling.
He counted to five.
Not to calm himself.
To make sure his voice belonged to a father rather than an enraged husband.
“Has she ever hit you?”
“No.”
Immediate.
“Grabbed you?”
“Sometimes my arm.”
“Hard?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has she hurt you?”
Ellie thought.
“Not like blood.”
Grant closed his eyes.
Not like blood.
The sentence would follow him for years.
He opened them.