Chapter 8 - The Pantry Before the Plates
Dad didn't ask me at the table. He waited until breakfast was almost over and my orange juice was just pulp at the bottom of the glass.
I kept pushing my eggs around with my fork. Vanessa was wiping Tyler's plate even though he'd already finished. She hummed a little, like everything was normal again.
Dad stood up with his own empty glass. "You want more juice, Em? Come help me get it."
It wasn't a big thing to say. But he looked right at me when he said it. I felt my stomach get tight.
I nodded and slid out of my wooden chair. My dress pocket bumped against the table edge. I put my hand over it without thinking.
Vanessa didn't even look up. "There's apple in the pantry, not orange," she said. "We ran out."
"Apple's fine," Dad said fast.
I followed him out of the dining room into the hall. The warm light was dimmer out there. I could hear my shoes on the wood floor. He carried both glasses in one hand and kept his other hand close to my back, not quite touching me.
The pantry was just a narrow room off the hall with shelves on both sides. It smelled like cans and bread. The light inside was a little yellow bulb that buzzed.
Dad set the glasses down on a shelf and crouched so his eyes were level with mine. "You said you could show me?" he whispered. "Just us."
I nodded. My breathing got loud. I didn't want to go back in there, even with him.
Yesterday, Vanessa had sent me to get napkins before dinner. The extra cloth ones we only used when people came over. They were folded on the top shelf in the pantry.
I walked in and pointed up. "I had to stand on this," I said, and tapped the little step stool with my toe.
Dad moved back to give me room. I climbed up, one step, two steps. My light blue dress caught on the edge. I reached up for where the napkins had been.
That was when I felt it again in my head. A hand, fast, around my upper arm. Not holding. Grabbing.
I froze with my hand in the air.
"She came in behind me," I said. My voice sounded small under that buzzing bulb. "She grabbed me here." I touched my own arm with my other hand. "And she put her hand here."
I put my palm over my mouth. Dad's face changed. He didn't move closer. He just breathed.
"What did she say, Emmy?" he asked. His voice was low and steady. "Do you remember exactly?"
I swallowed. "She said, 'You stay quiet tonight.'"
I took my hand off my mouth. My fingers were shaking. "She squeezed. It hurt."
Dad nodded once. He didn't say she didn't mean it or ask if I was sure. That made it easier to keep going.
"I kicked," I said. "My shoe hit the shelf down there."
I pointed down at the bottom shelf frame. Dad turned his head and looked where I was looking. There was a dark scuff on the white-painted wood, fresh enough that the paint was rough. Like a black sneaker mark.
He leaned in. His gray shirt pulled tight across his shoulders. He ran his thumb near it but didn't touch it.
"Did you fall?" he asked.
"A little. My clip hit the shelf," I said. I pulled the broken clip from my pocket. The tooth was snapped off. "It made a click noise. That's when it broke."
Dad stared at my clip for a long second. Then he looked back down at the floor under the shelf. He got down on his knees on the pantry tile.
"What are you looking for?" I whispered.
"Just checking," he said.
He moved an extra grocery bag out of the way. He tilted his head to catch the light. Then he stopped.
Down in the crack where the shelf met the floor, something tiny and gold glinted.
Dad picked it up carefully between two fingers. It was the little back to an earring, the kind that pushed on. Round and gold and smaller than a pea.
My chest felt cold. I knew those earrings. Vanessa wore the gold hoops almost every night at dinner. They swung when she leaned over the table.
"Is that hers?" Dad asked, holding it up but keeping his voice even.
I nodded. I didn't want to say it out loud, but I did. "She was wearing them that night. One was hanging funny after. Like loose."
Dad closed his hand around the little gold back. He stayed on his knees for a moment, looking from the scuff to the floor to my arm.
He didn't put it in his pocket right away. He opened my hand and set it in my palm for just a second, so we both saw it there together.
"This came off right here?" he asked.
"When I pulled," I said. "I grabbed to get loose and my hand hit her ear."
He nodded slowly and then took it back and slipped it deep into his own pants pocket. He stood up and lifted me off the step stool like I weighed nothing and set me down in the hall outside the pantry.
"You did good showing me," he said. His hand was shaking a little where it rested on my shoulder. "Real good."
From the dining room, we could hear Vanessa call out, "Everything okay in there?"
Dad looked down the hall toward her voice, then back at me. He put a finger to his lips, just for a second.
May you like
"Almost got it," he called back. He poured apple juice with his hand still not quite steady.
I held my empty glass with both hands and tried to breathe normal again.
