Chapter 2: What She Wrote In The Hallway
Lauren didn't answer right away after my dad said it. "She's six."
She just kept looking at my pocket. The marble was cold under my bare feet and I could feel his leg shaking a little where I pressed against it. The corn on my plate had gone still. The fork was still in my hand but his hands weren't on mine anymore, one of them was on my shoulder holding me behind him.
I tried to breathe quiet so she wouldn't hear it.
Lauren's mouth got tight. She took a half step back toward the hallway like she was giving us room, but her eyes didn't leave me. I saw her glance down at the orange and silver dog bowl on the floor by the cabinets and then back up. Her cardigan was buttoned all the way and her hair was pulled back so tight I could see her forehead shine in the daylight from the kitchen window.
"She needs rules," she said. It wasn't loud. She said it the same way she said it when she told me I hadn't earned breakfast.
My dad didn't move. His hand tightened on my shoulder just enough that I felt it.
For a second nobody said anything. The fridge hummed. I could hear the clock over the stove ticking and I counted two ticks before he finally breathed out.
Lauren turned then. Not fast, not like she was mad. She turned like she'd decided something and walked back toward the hallway. Her gray trousers made a soft sound on the marble. She didn't go far, just past the doorway where the hall got darker and the closet was.
My dad crouched down next to me. He didn't look at Lauren, he looked at me. His face was close and I could see the little lines between his eyebrows and the stubble on his chin. He smelled like coffee and his suit jacket.
"Hey," he whispered. His voice was low so it wouldn't carry. "Are you okay?"
I nodded but my hand was still holding the fork too tight. He glanced at my pocket. The two strawberries were in there, the tops poking up a little. I thought he was going to tell me to take them out or to eat them fast.
He didn't. He slid his hand down and very carefully, with two fingers, he eased them out of the pocket. His palm covered them so Lauren couldn't see if she turned around. The berries were warm from my pajamas. One had a little squish on the side where I'd been pressing against his leg.
He tucked them against his own leg behind my back, hiding them between my side and his knee. He wasn't trying to feed me. He was keeping them. I realized that and my chest got tight because I didn't know if that meant I was in trouble or if he was trying to keep me out of trouble.
I clutched his shirt with my free hand. My pajamas were soft and the pocket hung empty now and I felt weird without the weight in it.
In the hallway, I heard the closet door click. Lauren had opened the small hall closet where she kept her purse and the vacuum. I leaned sideways to see around my dad's shoulder.
She wasn't getting her purse.
She reached up to the top shelf where she kept a stack of folded dish towels. She moved them aside and pulled out something dark. It was small, about the size of my storybooks, with a black cover. She held it with both hands flat against her chest for a second like she was checking that it was still there.
My dad saw it too. His shoulders went stiff. He started to stand up a little but he didn't let go of me.
Lauren closed the closet door soft and turned back toward the kitchen. She held the notebook closed. She didn't open it. She just held it and looked at us. Her face was back to being composed, like when people came over, but her eyes were doing that fast blinking she did when she was trying not to look panicked.
I didn't mean to say it out loud. I thought it and then it came out as a whisper before I could stop it.
May you like
"It's a notebook."
My dad heard me. He looked down at me fast, then back at Lauren in the hallway with the notebook held tight in her hands. He didn't ask what I meant. He just kept his hand around the strawberries, keeping them hidden, and kept me behind his leg where Lauren couldn't quite see me anymore.
