Chapter 12 - A Door She Could Open
Victoria sent a screenshot.
An email from Emily to a home-care agency.
I am interested in positions with predictable hours and health benefits. I would need to give notice to my current employer.
The date was two weeks before the assault.
For a moment, I simply stared.
Not because Emily had betrayed me.
Because Victoria thought she had.
“You see?” my wife said. “She was going to abandon them.”
“She was looking for a job.”
“After everything we did for her.”
“What exactly did we do?”
“I let her bring her sick child into our lives.”
I closed my eyes.
That was how she remembered it.
Not a boy who needed help.
An inconvenience she had permitted.
“Don’t call me again,” I said. “Contact Hannah.”
I saved the message and told my attorney about the call.
The next day, I asked Emily if she still wanted the agency position.
She went still.
“How did you know?”
“Victoria sent me the email.”
Emily’s face drained.
“I wasn’t going to leave without notice.”
“You don’t owe me a defense.”
“I love Sophie and Owen.”
“I know.”
“But Noah needs a schedule. He needs me home some nights. I can’t keep—”
She stopped.
I waited.
“I can’t keep proving I’m a good mother by being available to someone else’s children all the time.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
Tears filled her eyes.
That sentence had arrived far too late.
I offered to provide a reference based on her work. Nothing about the investigation. Nothing that would turn her suffering into an employment story.
She said she would think about it.
A week later, Noah left the hospital.
He wore a yellow raincoat even though the sky was clear.
“Captain likes yellow,” he explained.
Emily carried his medication bag. I carried the small suitcase after she agreed to let me.
Outside, she stopped beside the curb.
“I’m not coming back to work at the house.”
I nodded.
“All right.”
She looked surprised again.
I hated that I had given her reasons to expect resistance.
Her brother arrived to drive them to his apartment, where she would stay while making longer-term plans.
Before climbing into the car, Noah looked up at me.
“Are your babies okay?”
“They’re okay.”
He smiled.
“Mom’s good at keeping people okay.”
After they left, I sat alone on the hospital bench.
May you like
Hannah called before I stood.
“The records came in,” she said. “And the police have requested a new interview with Victoria.”
