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He turned to her and smiled. “As you can see, I don’t do this much.”
And judging from his big office, Steve wasn’t a regular police officer. He was the police officer, the one in charge. Sandy looked up at the bookcase over his head: a couple of framed certificates, a diploma, and a trophy with a basketball player on top. On the second shelf, she noticed the pictures. Dozens of family snapshots. Her eyes settled on one in the middle: a family of four, clustered together on the beach, all smiles and lit up by the sun. And right there, in the center, a face she fucking recognized: Ha
Jesus Christ. That would have been something nice to know. You know: Hey, FWIW, my dad’s the chief of police. But it wasn’t like Ha
“Wait, your mom wouldn’t let you what?” Sandy had asked a month or two into their sessions, choking on her coffee. Ha
They’d been studying at the Black Cat again. Ha
“My mom wouldn’t let me wear sparkles,” Ha
“Sparkles? What are you, Dora the Explorer?”
Ha
“No, I don’t know,” Sandy said. Like the junk drawer, glitter sneakers: another of life’s mysteries. “But I gotta be honest, they sound ugly as shit.”
“Yeah,” Ha
I’m sure she doesn’t hate you, Sandy thought about saying. But she didn’t like it when people said that kind of bullshit to her. As if them thinking the world was always so perfect and right would make it so.
“That’s messed up. What did you do?”
“Do?” Ha
“Is it working?”
“Not really.” Ha
“Don’t you ever just want to say fuck off instead?” Sandy asked. “I mean, no offense, but isn’t she supposed to be the person who loves you no matter what?” Even Je
“I think about it sometimes—a lot, even,” Ha
“Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it would make her change.” Sandy wasn’t sure who she was talking about: Ha
“No,” Ha
“Yikes,” Steve said. When Sandy snapped her eyes down from the pictures, he was pointing toward the scab on her arm. “What happened there?”
Shit. Sandy had let her sleeve ride up. “Oh, I fell off my bike.” She wrinkled her nose like a little kid—you know, “these things happen.” But her heart was pounding. Breathe. Fucking breathe. It’s just a question. One that anybody would ask, not just a cop. “At least my bike’s okay.”
“I don’t know about that.” Steve shook his head. “Bike can be replaced. You can’t. Hope you’re not riding around at night without reflective gear. I’m telling you, there are more bicyclist fatalities that way. Got to be careful out there.”
“Yeah. I mean, no. I mean—” Sandy shook her head, feeling sick. “I have reflectors.”
“Good, good. Okay, now I’m ready here with this system. Spell your mom’s full name for me?” Steve was leaning over his computer again, fingers raised above the keyboard.
“Je
Steve didn’t type. Didn’t move. He stayed frozen like that, hands floating over the keys. Sandy could feel her stomach pushing up. Was Je
“I think maybe we should start again. At the begi
MOLLY
MAY 18, 2013
What I told Dr. Zomer was not the whole truth. I didn’t even tell Justin that. But I think he knew. Of course he did.
I did drop a glass and I did slip and cut my hand a little when I was trying to clean it up. That’s all true. But when I saw the blood on my hand, I didn’t feel upset or worried. I felt relieved. Like the world had been rebalanced.
I don’t even remember picking up the piece of glass that I cut my arm with. But I did. I must have. I do remember being careful not to cause any real damage, in my nonexpert medical opinion. Because I could have if I’d wanted to. I could have done so much more.
And then Ella started to cry—one of her night terrors. And so I ran to her without thinking, because I could do that by then, comfort her after a bad dream. I didn’t realize how much that small cut was already bleeding.
I had Ella in my arms when Justin came home a few minutes later. As soon as he saw us, he started yelling: Where’s she bleeding? Where’s she bleeding? It wasn’t until I looked down that I saw Ella’s head was covered in blood.
A second later, I passed out. Luckily, Justin caught me—and Ella, thank God—as I fell. Next thing I knew, the paramedics were lifting me into the ambulance. Halfway to the hospital, they realized that the cut to my arm wasn’t serious. That I’d passed out not from blood loss but from the sight of it all over my daughter.
Justin lied and told the paramedics that he had been there, seen the whole thing. That it had been an accident, me and the broken glass and my arm. And watching Justin do that for me, lie like his life depended on it, like my life depended on it—and it might have, they could have hospitalized me against my will—I have never loved him more.
And so when he’d insisted the next day that I go see Dr. Zomer, I went. It was the least I could do.
Molly
“I got you a latte,” Stella said when I got to the Black Cat. She was at a table by the window, two coffees already in front of her. “Full-fat milk, of course. Because that’s all they serve in this godforsaken place.” Her nostrils flared. “Honestly, I don’t understand why you like it here.”
“It reminds me of the city,” I said as I sat down across from her, trying not to think of the box of files I’d had Steve leave in our living room. The box that was left by some stranger. A reader, maybe, but an angry one? A happy one? Who was to say? Thinking of it still inside my house filled me with dread. I wasn’t sure that I’d done the right thing, not reporting it as a crime.