Chapter 4 - Candlelight on Crystal
I was three that night, but I still remember how quiet the dining room got after the plates started to disappear. It wasn't the kind of quiet that meant dinner was over. It was the kind that meant the grown-ups were done pretending.
A woman from the kitchen had come in and taken Daddy's plate and Veronica's plate, and most of mine. She left my white bowl because I hadn't finished the pasta. The gold chargers were still under everything, catching the candlelight in hard little circles. My cut-crystal water glass was still there too, too heavy for me to lift with one hand, sweating a little ring onto the dark wood. The candles had burned down lower and the flames bent every time the air moved.
Daddy hadn't gone back to eating. He'd pushed his chair a little back from the table and turned so his knee touched my chair. His black shirt was still rolled at the sleeves and I could see the tattoos up his forearms and the edge of them at his neck. His silver watch clicked once against the table when he set his hand down. He didn't look at Veronica yet. He looked at me first, and his brow stayed pulled together like he was trying to hold something steady.
I still had my small gold spoon. I'd been holding it over my bowl for so long my fingers had gone warm around it.
Daddy breathed in through his nose and then looked past me toward the other end of the table. Veronica was sitting very straight in her burgundy velvet dress. Her dark hair was still pinned up and her diamond necklace caught the chandelier every time she moved her head. Her drop earrings didn't move at all. She had her hands folded in her lap like she was waiting for a photograph.
I remember Daddy's voice went lower, not loud. He didn't sound like when he was mad at traffic. He sounded careful.
"Veronica," he said, and he paused. "Did you take the picture from Sofia's room? Her mom's picture?"
The candle in front of me popped once. Nobody reached to fix it.
Veronica didn't look at me. She looked right at Daddy and smiled just enough that it wasn't really a smile. The light slid across her necklace.
"I put it away for safekeeping," she said. "She's three. That frame has glass. She'll break it."
Her tone was even, like she'd already decided that was the end of it. She lifted her water glass, just the cut-crystal one by her plate, and took a small sip and set it back down exactly on its ring.
Daddy didn't nod. I felt his knee press a little harder against my chair.
"When?" he asked.
Veronica blinked slow. "This afternoon. While she was napping."
I shook my head before I even knew I was doing it. I shook it hard enough my white bow slipped against my hair. My long hair stuck to my cheek and I didn't brush it away because I didn't want to let go of my spoon. I held that spoon tighter, until the little handle pressed into my palm. I wasn't trying to be bad. I just knew she wasn't telling the whole part.
Daddy saw it. I know he did because his eyes flicked down to my hand and then back up to my face. His jaw moved once.
"She says you hid it," he said to Veronica. Still quiet.
Veronica laughed a short breath through her nose. "She's three, James. She thinks anything put up high is hidden."
She said my age like it explained me away. The white flowers in the middle of the table smelled too sweet that close to the candles. Behind Veronica, the big windows were black except for our reflections. I could see all three of us in the glass, small and bright in the middle of the dark.
Daddy leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. His tattoos shifted with the muscle. He glanced at my bowl, at my spoon gripped white-knuckle in my fist, then back at Veronica.
"You never asked me about that," he said.
It wasn't a yell. It was worse than a yell because there was nowhere for it to go. The words just sat there over the gold chargers and the pasta getting cold in my bowl.
Veronica's stare didn't break. "I didn't think I needed permission to keep your daughter safe."
Daddy didn't answer right away. I heard him breathe. I heard the candle wax hiss a little. My heart was beating so fast it made my lace dress feel itchy at the neck, and I scooted my chair, just a half inch, until my shoulder touched Daddy's arm. He didn't move away. He let me stay there, solid and warm.
May you like
He looked down at me again, and his expression softened for just a second before it tightened back up. He wasn't done. I could tell he wasn't done, but he wasn't going to do it here, not yelling over the table with me between them.
The kitchen door stayed shut. The water in my glass trembled when someone walked upstairs, just a faint line shaking against the crystal.
