“Do you want me to call someone?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Adrian turned.
“My mother.”
His parents lived twenty minutes away.
His mother, Rose Bennett, arrived in thirteen.
She entered the house like a woman expecting fire.
At sixty-seven, Rose was small, gray-haired, and normally calm enough to make Adrian seem dramatic by comparison.
She saw Emma.
The red mark around one wrist.
The swollen eyes.
The dog bowl still sitting in the kitchen.
Rose stopped.
“What happened?”
Emma ran toward her.
“Grandma.”
Rose hugged her.
Then looked at Adrian over the child’s shoulder.
Adrian shook his head.
Not now.
Rose understood.
She took Emma upstairs for a bath.
Jonathan remained in the kitchen.
Adrian stared at the dog bowl.
Ranger wandered in from the laundry room.
The elderly retriever sniffed the bowl.
Then sat beside it.
Waiting.
Adrian picked it up.
His hands shook.
He carried it to the sink.
Jonathan spoke behind him.
“You don’t have to do anything tonight.”
“Yes, I do.”
“What?”
“Find that box.”
Jonathan sighed.
“Adrian.”
“Emma said Lauren wanted it.”
“She’s exhausted.”
“I know.”
“And you are angry.”
“I know.”
“That is when people invent connections.”
Adrian turned.
“Hannah knew Lauren.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Emma saw a picture.”
“Maybe.”
“You think she imagined it?”
“No.”
Jonathan leaned against the counter.
“I think six-year-olds can identify a woman in a photograph and still misunderstand what the photograph means.”
Adrian nodded.
Fair.
“I still need to see it.”
“Then wait until Emma is calm.”
They did.
At seven-thirty, Emma sat between Adrian and Rose in her pajamas.
She had eaten macaroni and cheese.
Only after Rose sat beside her and took the first bite.
That detail hurt Adrian.
He tried not to show it.
“Can you show me where you hid the blue box?”
Emma looked toward the stairs.
“Lauren won’t come back?”
“No.”
“Ever?”
The question was harder.
“Not tonight.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“Not without me knowing.”
Emma thought.
“Okay.”
They went upstairs.
The attic door opened from a hallway near the guest bedrooms.
Emma climbed three steps.
Adrian followed.
The space smelled like cedar, dust, and cardboard.
Hannah’s life occupied one side.
Christmas ornaments.
Books.