"The school called them. The nurse. Because Lulu's lost three pounds, Vanessa. Because she had a cubby full of food she was hiding like a squirrel. Because her teacher sent three notes home and somebody signed them and threw them away."
Vanessa's chin lifted. "The notes were about snacks. She's supposed to eat at meals. If she eats junk all day at school she won't eat what I make, and then—"
"Theo wrote it down."
She stopped.
"Every night since February," Andre said. "Every night I was gone. He wrote down what she didn't get to eat. You want to know what he wrote in June?" He did not raise his voice. He found that he could not; it seemed to be stuck low in his chest. "She ate out of Pepper's old dog food bag in the garage. Because she was hungry and that's what was there."
Vanessa put her hand on the porch railing.
For a long time she did not say anything. When she did, it was not what he expected.
"My mother had a lock on the pantry," she said. She was looking at the flamingo, not at him. "A padlock. Brass. She wore the key around her neck. If I took something without asking, I didn't eat the next day. If I cried about it, I didn't eat the day after that. She said it was how you raised a girl who had control of herself. And I did. I had control." She laughed, one short breath with no humor in it. "I was raised that way and I turned out—"
She did not finish. He watched her hear herself.
"Did you?" he said. Not cruelly. He honestly wanted to know.
"I don't know," she said. Her eyes were wet. "I don't know. I walked into that house and every wall had her on it, Andre. Monique's plates. Monique's recipes in the drawer. Monique's babies looking at me like I was a substitute teacher. And you were never there. You were in Columbus, you were in Louisville, you were asleep. I was alone in that house with two children who didn't want me, and I thought if I could just get them to — mind. To follow the rules. Then it would be my house too." She pressed her fist against her mouth. "I never hit them. I want you to know that. I never once."
"You didn't have to hit her," he said. "You just had to take away the one thing she couldn't do without, and wait for her to be good."
Vanessa closed her eyes.
He made himself say the rest. He had practiced it in the shower that morning, the way Theo must have practiced.
"I'm sorry about your mother. I mean that. I'm sorry nobody fed you the way you should've been fed. But you were the grown-up in that house. You were the grown-up and she was five. I'm getting a lawyer. You're going to get one too. You don't contact the kids. Not a card, not a call. Whatever happens with you and me happens through people whose job it is."
She nodded slowly. She did not argue, and that, more than anything, told him she believed Theo.