Chapter 6 - He Came Through the Back Doors Running
I stayed tucked under Dad's arm and I didn't lift my head at first. His shirt smelled like cold air and truck gas. His chest was moving fast under my cheek. Maya's hand was still fisted in my vest and she wouldn't let go even when he tried to shift us both back from the middle of the floor.
The marble was hard under my knees. The woman in the burgundy dress was still on the floor a few feet away. The bat was right there beside her heel. Nobody had picked it up.
"What the hell are you doing?" That's what he'd yelled. I kept hearing it. It didn't sound like the way he talked at home.
"You were supposed to stay with them," somebody said behind us. A man's voice, low. Not talking to us.
Dad didn't look up. "I went to move the truck," he said. His hand was big on the back of my neck. "I told the coordinator I'd be two minutes. I told them to wait by the wall."
That part I remembered. The hallway outside the double doors had been loud with plates and shoes. He'd crouched down and pointed to the spot under the sconces where the light made a yellow pool on the marble. Stay right here, he'd said. Don't go in without me. Maya had nodded because she always nods fast when she's nervous. I'd said okay.
But the doors had been open. Music spilled out. People in dark suits kept looking at us like we were in the way. Then she came. The woman in the long velvet dress. Her heels clicked. She told us to get inside, that we were making a scene out by the service table. She grabbed Maya's wrist.
"You left them alone?" the other voice said.
"I didn't leave them," Dad said. His voice cracked a little. "I left them for two minutes."
I felt Maya breathe in sharp. She whispered, "We waited. We did wait." Her voice was so small I almost didn't hear it under the chandelier buzz.
Dad squeezed her shoulder. "I know. I know, baby."
A woman in a black staff jacket stepped forward then. She had her hands twisted together in front of her apron. She kept glancing at the bat on the floor like she didn't want to look at it.
She said, "Ma'am took it from us."
Everything got quieter. Even the crying in the back stopped for a second.
Dad lifted his head. "What?"
The staff woman swallowed. "From the retirement display by the bar. The old baseball stuff. For the donor. It was wired down. She — she asked us to cut it loose for a photo. We said no. She pulled it free herself."
I looked at the bat. It was dark wood, scuffed at the end. There was a little torn white tag still tied near the handle. I hadn't noticed that before. My stomach turned.
The woman on the floor pushed up on one elbow. Her hair had fallen over her face. "That's not — I didn't steal anything," she said. "Tell them what these kids did. Tell them how they embarrassed me."
Dad didn't look at her. He looked at the staff woman. "She went and got it? On purpose? She walked over there and got it?"
The staff woman nodded once and stepped back fast, like she wished she hadn't spoken.
That changed the air. Before that I had been trying to tell myself maybe the bat just happened to be there. Maybe she just picked up whatever was close because she was mad. But she had left us by the doors, walked across that whole bright hall in her heeled sandals, and pulled it loose.
Maya felt it too. Her grip loosened a little on my vest. Not because she wasn't scared. Because she understood.
Dad breathed out through his nose. He pulled us both in tighter. "You heard her," he said, not loud, to nobody in particular. "He wasn't — that wasn't an accident."
The woman laughed, a short ugly sound from the floor. "You weren't even supposed to be here yet."
May you like
Dad stared at her. "No," he said. "I wasn't."
And his arms didn't loosen.
