Chapter 3 - Behind the Winter Coats
The closet was underneath the stairs.
I had opened it a hundred times for umbrellas, winter coats, spare batteries.
I had never noticed the small scratches near the bottom of the inside door.
The officer shone a flashlight across them.
Behind me, Eleanor said, “She plays in there.”
I stared at the latch.
It was new.
A small hook fastened high on the outside, almost invisible beneath the overhang of the stair rail.
“When was this installed?” the officer asked.
Eleanor shrugged.
“The door wouldn’t stay shut.”
Inside the closet, behind my wool coat, lay a folded towel and Lily’s stuffed rabbit.
One of its ears had been tied in a knot.
I knew that rabbit.
Grace had bought it the day we brought Lily home from the hospital.
I reached for it, but the officer gently stopped me.
“Let me document this first.”
From the den, I could hear Beth talking softly.
Eleanor lowered her voice.
“Richard. Look at me.”
I didn’t.
“She needed somewhere to calm down.”
I turned.
“You locked her in there?”
“Don’t use that word.”
“What word would you like?”
“You have no idea how hard she makes things when you leave.”
My hands started shaking.
I stepped away because I wanted my daughter to remember what happened next without being frightened of me, too.
The officers separated us. One stayed with Eleanor while the other explained what would happen next.
There would be a report. A child welfare referral. Follow-up interviews.
The video mattered. So did the closet. So did what Lily had told them.
Nothing about the process felt fast enough.
Beth took Lily to be examined while I remained to answer questions.
Before Eleanor left with an officer for further questioning, she leaned close enough for only me to hear.
“Ask your dead wife about Daniel.”
I looked at her.
She saw that the name meant nothing to me.
Her expression sharpened with satisfaction.
“Oh,” she whispered. “She really never told you.”
After they left, I went into the study.
The safe stood open behind a cabinet door.
Several envelopes were scattered inside. A velvet jewelry pouch lay empty.
At the bottom sat a photograph I had never seen.
Grace was much younger, standing outside a brick building with a newborn in her arms.
May you like
On the back, in her handwriting, were six words.
My son. Always, even from here.
