Chapter 2 - After The Glass Stopped Moving
He didn't raise his voice. That was what made the room go still in a different way.
My father's hand moved first. I watched it because I was staring at the floor. The cut crystal caught the chandelier light and then it was gone as he bent slowly and set the tumbler down. The base hit the silver tray he'd picked up off the floor and it made a small, clean clink that echoed off the marble. I felt it in my shoes more than I heard it. His tattoos, the rose on the back of his hand and the letters on his fingers, flexed as he released the glass.
He looked at the maid where she was still kneeling. His face didn't change.
"Elena, to the kitchen," he said, quiet and even. "We'll finish up here."
It wasn't loud. It was the kind of tone you use when you don't want the guests to hear, even though no guests were there. He didn't look at me when he said it.
The maid — Elena — didn't answer right away. Her hands were still open toward me, palms up. She lowered them slow, like she didn't want me to think she was pulling away from me. She looked at me once, just her eyes, and then she stood. Her burgundy dress pulled straight.
"Yes, sir," she said. She took a step back. Then another. She didn't touch the tray.
My mother stood up from where she'd been kneeling by the stairs. I'd forgotten she was there. She smoothed both hands down the front of her gold dress, pressing out a wrinkle that wasn't there. The metallic fabric made a soft shushing sound.
"Come on, sweetheart," she said to me, and her hand found my shoulder. Not my arm, my shoulder, and light, steering. "Up we go. You're tired."
She didn't say the name Elena had said. She didn't say any name. She just guided me toward the first step, her fingers barely grazing my sweater. Her smile was still there but it was for the room, not for me. I kept both hands locked around my block. The wood was warm from my chest.
We started up the stairs. I had to lift my feet high because the marble steps were taller than my legs. Behind us, I heard my father's shoes on the checkered floor and then Elena's softer steps going the other way, toward the hallway that led to the kitchen. No one picked up the tray. It stayed right where it had been near my feet, silver and flat, reflecting the bottom of the chandelier.
The railing was black iron curled into loops and vines. As my mother walked me up, the light from the chandelier moved with us, sliding along the rail and throwing our shadows up the cream wall. I counted the pilasters as we passed them. I didn't look down because I knew if I looked down I'd see my father's face tilted up watching.
At the top, the hallway was carpeted and quieter. My room was the second door on the left. My mother pushed it open and left the overhead light off. Only the small lamp by the bed was on.
"There," she said. She let go of my shoulder and stepped back toward the hall. "You play quiet, okay? Stay in your room for a bit. Everything's fine."
That's what she said. Everything's fine. Three words that didn't fit over what had just happened.
I nodded. I was still holding the block with both hands against my sweater.
She pulled the door most of the way closed, not all the way, maybe two inches open. I heard her heels go back toward the stairs, careful and quick.
I stood in the middle of my rug and listened. My bedroom had the same cream walls as the foyer but smaller, and my bed had a white headboard that looked like it belonged to someone else's kid. I sat on the edge of it and kept the block where it was.
Downstairs, their voices came up through the floor and the cracked door. I couldn't make out every word, but I could hear the shape of it. My father's low murmur first, then my mother's lighter laugh that wasn't a laugh, then his voice again, a little harder. A cabinet shut in the kitchen, far away, where Elena would be.
I knew without anyone telling me that the name wasn't allowed to be said again. That was how it always went when something slipped. You pretended it hadn't.
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I lay back on the bed on top of the blanket. The chandelier from downstairs wasn't visible from here, but I could still see its light faintly on my ceiling, flickering a little when someone moved underneath it. I turned the block over in my hands. Two holes all the way through. I put my thumb in one.
I listened until the downstairs voices went low and steady and the house felt like it was holding its breath again.
