He said he’d been carrying something heavy and he didn’t know what to do with it.”
“Did he say what?”
“He said Daniel had called him from the hospital.
Before the police arrived.
He said Daniel told him there’d been an accident and to keep his mouth shut.” Ava’s voice was flat.
“Marcus hung up on him.
But he never came forward either.”
Photographic & Digital Arts
I sat back down at the table.
Marcus.
I had known Marcus for fifteen years.
He came to Christmas dinner.
He’d stood at Chloe’s graveside with his hat in his hands and wept.
And he had known.
“Do you still have his number?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t call him yet.” I pressed my fingers to my temple.
Kitchen & Dining
“If Daniel suspects something, the first thing he’ll do is call Marcus.
We can’t warn him that we’re coming.”
Ava nodded slowly.
“So what do we do?”
“Tonight, nothing.
We act normal.
You help me clean up the glass.
We eat dinner.
When Daniel comes home, we are fine.
Food & Drink
Both of us.” I looked at her directly.
“Can you do that?”
Her jaw was tight.
“I’ve been doing it for five years.”
The words landed like a stone in still water.
She was right.
Every dinner, every holiday, every time Daniel had put his arm around her at Chloe’s grave and called her “our girl” — she had been sitting across from the man who had destroyed her life and smiling because she had no other choice.
I had adopted her to honor Chloe.
And without knowing it, I had placed her back inside the same house as the man she was most afraid of.
Adoption
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked up.
“I didn’t know.
But I should have — I should have asked more.
I should have seen—”
“You couldn’t have known,” Ava said.
“He’s very good at being believed.”
Daniel came home at 6:04.
He brought takeout — Thai food, my usual order.
He set it on the table and talked about a problem at work, something about a supplier and a delayed shipment.
Kitchen & Dining
I listened and responded and passed him the soy sauce.
Ava ate quietly.
She asked him one question about his day.
