“Ethan, I don’t think interrogating a four-year-old is healthy.”
“I’m talking to my daughter.”
Natalie went silent.
Sophie pressed her face against my chest.
“She takes Felix.”
Felix was the stuffed fox.
I looked at Natalie.
“What does she mean?”
Natalie’s expression tightened.
“I put the toy away sometimes because she refuses to do anything without it.”
Sophie lifted her head.
“She hides him in the basement.”
“The basement?”
Natalie shook her head.
“The storage room. For ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. When she refuses lunch or won’t put her toys away.”
My stomach tightened.
“You take away the one thing her mother gave her?”
“I’m trying to teach boundaries.”
Sophie whispered something.
I almost didn’t hear it.
“What was that?”
“She puts me there too.”
Every muscle in my body went rigid.
Natalie’s face changed.
“Sophie.”
It was only her name.
But there was something in the way Natalie said it.
Something sharp.
Sophie covered both ears.
“No!”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“Where do you put her?”
“I don’t put her anywhere.”
Sophie began crying.
“The little room.”
I carried her away from the table.
“What little room?”
“Downstairs.”
Our basement was finished except for a narrow utility room beside the laundry area.
It contained shelves, cleaning supplies and a small electrical panel.
There was no window.
I looked at Natalie.
She was pale now.
“That is not what happened.”
Sophie clutched my shirt.
“She closes the door.”
“For how long?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
Natalie stepped toward us.
“She gets overwhelmed. Sometimes I give her a quiet place to calm down.”
“You lock her inside?”
“No.”
Sophie cried harder.
“She says Mommy can’t hear me there.”
The room went completely still.
I felt something cold move through me.
Natalie stared at Sophie.
For the first time since I had known her, I saw hatred flash across my wife’s face.
It vanished almost instantly.
But I saw it.
And once I saw it, I could not unsee it.