Chapter 12: Leaving The Glossy Tile
It was 6:30 and the house smelled like fake pine and heating vents. Mom had left the garland on. That was on purpose.
She kept moving like we were just going for a sleepover. She didn't pull suitcases down from the attic. She used my pink backpack and her canvas tote from the grocery store. I sat on the edge of my bed and watched her hands. They were shaking a little, but her voice wasn't.
"You're going to wear your sweats, okay, bug?" she said. She opened my closet and reached past the sweaters and pulled out the white dress. The one with the little stitched lines down the front and the red sash. The red ribbon was still tied to the hanger where I'd left it.
She didn't fold it. She laid it flat on the bed and smoothed the sash with her palm.
"Is that for the party?" I asked.
"No, honey. We're going to bring it so people can understand," she said. She looked at me then, really looked. "You didn't do anything wrong wearing it. But Daddy picked it for you to wear when people were watching, right?"
I nodded.
"So we're going to keep it safe," she said. She folded it carefully, once, twice, and tucked the red velvet ribbon right in the middle where it wouldn't get wrinkled. She zipped it into the tote like it was important paperwork, not a dress. I understood then she wasn't packing clothes. She was packing proof.
Downstairs, Uncle Daniel was in the kitchen. He'd taken his suit jacket off and his left wristwatch caught the light over the glossy tile. The earpiece was gone, coiled in his palm.
He had the pantry door open. The little light inside was dark.
"Can you hand me your phone, Claire?" he called out, quiet.
Mom came down with the bags and I followed. Daniel had unscrewed the bulb just enough that it wouldn't come on. He held his phone up and took a picture inside the pantry. The flash made me flinch. Inside it was just shelves and a mop and that deep black when he closed the door an inch.
"See how dark it gets with the bulb disabled," he said, more to Mom than to me. He wasn't trying to scare me. He opened it again and showed Mom the little latch on the outside, the hook that Daddy could flip down to keep it shut from the hall. "He did this with a slide bolt from the hardware store. It's not original to the house."
He pulled a small screwdriver from his pocket and loosened the screws. He didn't take the whole thing off. He just turned it sideways so it couldn't catch, then slipped the screws into his pocket.
"So it can't lock from the outside anymore," he told me directly. He crouched again, just like that night on the tile, so his eyes were level with mine. "Even if someone tries. Do you want to try closing it?"
I stepped forward and pushed the pantry door. It clicked shut and then eased open again on its own. Light from the kitchen spilled in along the bottom. It didn't stay dark.
I breathed out and didn't realize I'd been holding it.
Mom squeezed my shoulder. "We're leaving the lights on," she said. "All of them. The string lights, too."
Daniel nodded. "That's right. Leave it like nothing happened."
We left through the kitchen door, not the front. The cold hit us in a rush. Daniel carried both bags in one hand and had his other hand on my back, not pushing, just there. Mom locked the kitchen door behind us and then stopped and left the deadbolt unlocked, the little button turned to day mode. She looked back through the glass at the warm kitchen, the fruit bowl on the counter, the garland still glowing over the doorway.
We went to his car in the driveway. His apartment was across town, twenty minutes past the high school and the gas station with the big car wash. I sat in the back with the tote on my lap. The white dress was zipped inside but I could feel the velvet ribbon through the canvas.
His apartment smelled like coffee and laundry. He had a couch and a TV that wasn't on and a bedroom with a real lock on the inside that you turned yourself. Mom put the tote on the dresser without opening it. Daniel turned on the lamp and left the kitchenette light on for me. No one talked loud.
Around eight my mom's phone buzzed on the counter. She stared at it.
DADDY flashed on the screen, with his picture from last summer.
She didn't answer. It rang three times and went to voicemail. Then it buzzed again, a call. Then stopped. A minute later a text popped up.
Mom read it out loud, her voice flat. "Where are you. Kitchen light is on."
Daniel looked at her and she typed back with her thumbs. I saw her hands were steadier now.
we are safe, she wrote. talk tomorrow with counsel.
May you like
She hit send and turned the phone face-down. The phone buzzed once more right away but she didn't pick it up. Daniel put a hand on the back of her chair.
Outside his window I could hear traffic on the highway, steady and far away, nothing like our quiet street. I sat on the edge of his spare bed in my sweats and looked at the closed tote with the dress inside. The pantry door at home couldn't lock anymore. The lights were still on over our glossy tile, burning for no one, and Daddy was standing in that empty bright kitchen by himself.
