I Clutched My Bunny While Daddy Ordered Her Out Before I Said Mommy Died

I didn't notice it because I was looking for it. I noticed it because he tried to hide it.

After I said it, Daddy didn't move right away. I felt his whole body go still under my hand where I was holding his coat. His breathing changed. Not fast. Just shallow, like he was counting in his head. The maid made a small sound behind her hands. My sisters didn't move at all.

Then Daddy cleared his throat and pulled his suit jacket forward over his right side.

It was a quick tug. The kind grown-ups do without thinking. But I'd been staring up at him and I saw the black shape push against his shirt for half a second before the jacket covered it. Hard and square at the top. Heavy at his waistband.

I knew that shape. I just didn't have a word for it that morning that I would say out loud.

He stepped back from me then, one step, and looked down at my hand still twisted in his coat. "Lucia, what is it?" he had already asked me. Now there was nothing left to ask, so he just gently pried my fingers loose. His right hand came down to do it. The back of it was inked all the way to his knuckles. I remember staring at the tattoos because I didn't want to look at his face.

"Daddy," my oldest sister whispered. I think she said my name too, but I can't be sure. The kitchen felt too bright suddenly. The sun off the tile hurt my eyes. The vase on the island, the bowl of oranges, all of it too sharp.

The maid lowered her hands from her mouth. Her lipstick was smeared a little on her palm. There was flour or something pale on her cheek. She looked at Daddy, then at me, and she shook her head just once, tiny. Not at me. Like to herself.

"You shouldn't —" she started, and stopped.

Daddy didn't look at her. He kept his eyes on me. He crouched down so we were face to face. When he moved, his jacket gaped open again on the right side and I saw it plain. Tucked tight between his shirt and his pants. Dark. I stared at it and my stomach dropped.

I remembered the night before Mom stopped coming downstairs in the morning.

It hadn't been loud at first. I'd woken up because Bunny had fallen off my bed and I went to get a drink of water. The hallway light was off but the kitchen was lit underneath. I heard Mom's voice, low and fast. Then Daddy's, lower. I stood at the top of the stairs with my bare feet cold on the wood and listened.

"You can't keep doing this," Mom had said. "Not in this house."

"It's handled," Daddy said.

I crept down two steps. Through the railing I could see into the edge of the living area by the piano. Daddy stood with his back to me. Mom stood facing him in her robe. She wasn't crying. She looked tired.

"Then why do you need that?" she asked.

Daddy didn't answer. He lifted his shirt on the right side and tucked something dark into his waistband. The same motion. Quick, practiced. He pulled his jacket — he wasn't even wearing a suit that night, just a sweater — he pulled it down over it.

I remember thinking it was his phone. That's what I told myself going back upstairs. Grown-ups always tucked their phones away when they were mad.

Now in the daylight kitchen, with the marble island behind him and my sisters breathing hard beside me, I knew it wasn't a phone. Phones weren't that shape. Phones didn't make Mom go quiet like that.

"Daddy?" I said. My voice sounded thin.

He put his tattooed hand on my shoulder. Not hard. His thumb pressed once into the collar of my floral dress. "Go sit with your sisters," he said quietly.

I didn't move. My eyes kept dropping to his waist. I wanted to reach out and touch it just to be sure it was real. To prove I hadn't imagined the night on the stairs. My hand lifted a little off my side.

The maid saw. She saw before he did. She took a half step forward on her knees — the tile must have hurt her knees — and she said, "Honey, look at me."

I looked at her because her voice cracked. Her eyes were wet but she wasn't crying like in movies. Just shiny.

"Hold Bunny," she whispered, and nodded at the rug where my bunny lay tipped over near the island leg. Light-colored, one ear bent. I'd dropped it when I ran to Daddy.

I didn't want to let go of his coat to get it. But I bent down anyway and picked it up because it gave my hands something to do besides reaching. I squeezed it hard against my chest. It smelled like my sheets.

Daddy stood back up. He smoothed his jacket over the right side again, flat with his palm this time, making sure it lay right. He glanced toward the tall windows like he was checking if anyone could see in. No one could. It was just us and the daylight and the piano lid shining.

I linked that tug to the word I'd just said. Killed. I didn't know how guns worked, not really. I'd only seen them on TV with the sound down when Mom changed the channel fast. But I knew they belonged with that word. The heaviness at his waist felt like the reason Mom's side of the bed stayed made.

He hadn't pulled it out. He hadn't touched it except to cover it. And I didn't touch it either. I kept Bunny crushed to my dress and kept my fingers curled away from him.

That was my choice. Not to grab. Not to ask in front of everyone what it was. Because some part of me understood that if I named it out loud, the morning would get worse and I wouldn't be able to take it back, same as what I'd already said.

My lavender-dress sister edged closer until her shoe touched mine. White sock, white shoe. All three of us lined up again without anyone telling us to.