CHAPTER 2
I locked the back door before Emily said anything else.
It was instinct.
Mom was gone.
The relatives were gone.
But suddenly I felt like I needed a barrier between my daughters and the entire world.
Rosie was still attached to me.
Her legs were wrapped around my waist.
Her face pressed into my shoulder.
Emily stood a few feet away, watching me carefully.
I lowered my voice.
"You can tell me anything."
She swallowed.
"Grandma said you'd be mad."
"At you?"
Emily nodded.
"Why would I be mad at you?"
"Because I make things harder."
I felt like someone had punched me.
"Who told you that?"
She started crying again.
Not loudly.
Emily had become frighteningly good at crying without making sound.
I put Rosie down long enough to pull Emily against me.
"You do not make my life harder."
Her shoulders shook.
"Grandma says you work so much because taking care of us costs too much."
I closed my eyes.
For one second.
That was all I allowed myself.
"What else does Grandma say?"
Emily glanced toward Rosie.
Rosie had picked up the stuffed rabbit from the floor and was squeezing it against her chest.
"She says I'm the big sister, so when you're gone, Rosie is my responsibility."
"Grandma is the adult."
"I know."
"Then why were you responsible?"
Emily wiped her face.
"Because Grandma gets tired."
A cold feeling crawled through me.
"How often?"
Emily didn't answer.
"Sweetheart, how often does she make you take care of Rosie?"
"Whenever we're with her."
The room seemed to tilt.
I had trusted my mother with my children twice a week after school and sometimes on Saturdays.
Sometimes more during difficult projects.
"Tell me what that means."
Emily looked at her hands.
"Changing her clothes. Making snacks. Getting her water. Taking her to the bathroom. Cleaning up when she spills something."
"While Grandma does what?"
"Sometimes she watches television."
My jaw tightened.
"Sometimes her friends come over."
There it was.
I remembered Mom mentioning card games.
Lunches.
Her neighborhood friends.
I had imagined Rosie playing nearby while Emily read or did homework.
I had imagined my mother supervising.
"What happens if Rosie cries?"
Emily went quiet.
"Emily."
"Grandma gets mad."
"At Rosie?"
"At me."
Rosie looked up.
"Grandma yells."
My heart cracked at the casual way she said it.
Like this was normal.
I sat on the kitchen floor.
"Come here, Rosie."
She hurried into my lap.
"What does Grandma yell about?"
Rosie shrugged.
"I'm bad."
"No."
I said it too sharply.
She flinched.
I immediately softened my voice.
"No, baby. You're not bad."
"Grandma says big girls don't cry."
Emily knelt beside us.
"Sometimes she puts Rosie in the laundry room when she won't stop."
Everything in me went still.
"The laundry room?"
Emily nodded.
"With the door closed?"
Another nod.
"For how long?"
"I don't know."
"Five minutes?"
Emily shook her head.
"Longer."
"Twenty?"
She whispered, "Sometimes."
I looked at Rosie.
"Did Grandma put you in there today?"
Rosie pressed the rabbit against her mouth.
"Before cake."
"Why?"
"I wanted Emily."
Emily started sobbing.
"I tried to get her out."
I grabbed her.
"This is not your fault."
"Grandma made me finish setting the table first."
I held both girls.
My own mother had used one child to control the other.
The realization was so ugly that my mind kept trying to reject it.
I wanted another explanation.
There wasn't one.
I called our pediatrician.
The office told me to bring Emily to urgent care because her hand was painful and swollen.
I cleaned the kitchen only enough to find shoes.
The rest could rot.
At urgent care, the nurse photographed Emily's hand for the chart.
The doctor examined it.
"Mild irritation and prolonged heat exposure," she said. "Nothing permanent, thankfully."
Thankfully.
I almost cried at that word.
Nothing permanent.
Not physically.
The doctor asked Emily how long her hand had been in the water.
Emily looked at me.
I said, "You can tell her."
"Grandma kept adding hot water because the grease wasn't coming off."
The doctor stopped writing.
"Your grandmother asked you to wash all those dishes?"
Emily nodded.
"While you were holding your little sister?"
Another nod.
The doctor looked at me.
Her expression had changed.
"Was another adult supervising?"
"There were twenty adults in the house."
Her lips pressed together.
Before we left, she gave me instructions for soothing Emily's skin.
She also gave me something else.
The name of a child therapist.
That hurt more.
On the drive home, Rosie fell asleep.
Emily sat beside her.
"Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"Are we still going to Grandma's tomorrow?"
My hands tightened on the steering wheel.
"No."
Emily's entire body relaxed.
I saw it in the mirror.
It was small.
But unmistakable.
Relief.
My daughter had been afraid I would send her back.
I pulled into a parking lot.
I couldn't keep driving.
I turned around.
"Listen to me. Neither of you will be alone with Grandma again."
Emily stared at me.
"Ever?"
"Ever."
"What if she gets mad?"
"Then she gets mad at me."
"What if she says you're being disrespectful?"
"Then she can say it to me."
"What if everyone believes her?"
That question told me Emily understood my family better than I had.
I reached between the seats and took her hand gently.
"I believe you."
Her face crumpled.
That night, after the girls finally slept together in my bed, I opened my banking app.
Three thousand dollars.
Every month.
Sometimes extra.
Four years.
I knew the total before I calculated it, but seeing the number made me sick.
More than one hundred forty thousand dollars.
Not all of it was necessarily misused.
My mother had bought groceries.
She had driven the girls.
She had helped.
But suddenly I needed to know what "help" had actually meant.
I pulled out the receipts from Rosie's party.
One charge caught my attention.
The last four digits of the card.
I recognized them.
My household credit card.
The card I had given Mom eighteen months earlier for emergencies involving the girls.
I opened the account.
Then I stopped breathing.
There were charges I didn't recognize.
Restaurants.
A salon.
A department store.
Wine deliveries.
A hotel.
I scrolled faster.
Three thousand.
Five thousand.
Eleven thousand.
My phone rang.
Mom.
I stared at her name.
I almost answered.
Then a text appeared.
You frightened the girls with your behavior today. We need to discuss your temper.
I read it twice.
Another message came.
Linda says everyone is worried about you.
Then another.
Do not poison those children against their grandmother.
I looked toward my bedroom.
Emily was asleep with one arm around Rosie.
Her injured hand rested on the blanket.
I typed one sentence.
Do not come to my house.
Mom responded immediately.
Claire, don't be ridiculous.
I blocked her number.
Then I called the credit card company.
And what the representative told me made me realize the party receipts were only the second thing I had finally seen.
There was another card on the account.
May you like
One I had never requested.
Issued in my mother's name.
