Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Didn't Leave
Nora answered on the second ring.
“Is Rose all right?”
Not hello.
Not why are you calling.
That question, sharp with fear.
Grant stepped into the hospital's empty family room.
“She's at St. Anne's. She's safe right now.”
Nora made a small, broken sound.
“What happened?”
He told her enough.
Then he asked why she had left.
“I didn't leave.”
Grant gripped the edge of the table.
“Vanessa said you found another family.”
“She fired me. Said you'd agreed. She had your assistant process my final pay.”
“Why didn't you call?”
Silence.
“I did, Grant.”
He closed his eyes.
“Twice. Then I emailed. You answered that Vanessa had authority over household staffing and you weren't discussing it during the merger.”
He remembered that email.
He had read the first lines between meetings.
Vanessa had called Nora possessive, resistant to change, determined to make a future stepmother feel unwelcome.
Grant had accepted the explanation that required the least effort from him.
“I thought it was a disagreement about routines,” he said.
“I wrote that Rose was frightened.”
He found the message while she stayed on the line.
There it was, three paragraphs down.
This is not about my position. Please ask your daughter why she is afraid to spill her milk.
Grant put the phone on the table and covered his mouth.
“What did you see?”
“Vanessa holding her arm too hard. Rose crying because she'd wet the bed. I intervened. Vanessa told me to get out.”
“Did you report it?”
“I called the child protection hotline after you shut me down. They took the information. I don't know what happened after that.”
He wrote down the date for Ruiz.
There had been people trying to reach him.
He had made himself difficult to reach.
“Will you come?” he asked.
“I'm getting my keys.”
When Nora entered Rose's room forty minutes later, the little girl sat up so fast Grant reached to steady her.
“You came back.”
Nora knelt beside the bed.
“Oh, sweetheart. I never wanted to go.”
Rose began to sob.
Loudly this time.
Nora stayed until the crying slowed.
May you like
Then Rose looked at Grant.
“She said you sent Nora away because Nora let me be bad.”
