Chapter 4
Morning came gray through the blinds. A woman from the safe room brought me toast on a plastic plate and asked if I wanted the crusts cut off. I told her no because I thought choosing the easier kind might count against me.
Ms. Alvarez arrived while I was still holding the second piece. She wore the same dark jacket as the day before and carried a folder under one arm.
“You don’t have to go to the house,” she said. “We can use a map, or you can describe the yard from here.”
“I said I’d show you.”
“You did. You’re allowed to change your mind.”
I looked down at my socks. I had slept in them, and one heel had twisted around to the top of my foot.
“I won’t go inside the kennel.”
“You won’t.”
The county car stopped across the street from the house instead of pulling into the driveway. Another investigator met us there. He introduced himself, but his name slipped away before he finished saying it. He gave me a sheet of paper clipped to a board.
“Can you draw where things are?” he asked.
I drew a box for the house, a narrow strip for the driveway, and a line for the back fence. My hand shook when I made the smaller rectangle behind the house.
“That’s the kennel,” I said.
“And the bucket?”
“On the left side. Unless she moved it.”
Ms. Alvarez opened the car door. “You can stay here with me.”
From the back seat, I watched the other investigator walk toward the house. He didn’t hurry. He spoke to someone at the front door, but I couldn’t see who because the porch post blocked my view.
Then my stepmom stepped out.
Even across the street, I recognized the way she held her shoulders when other people could see her. She stood straight and kept one hand on the doorframe. Her hair was neat. She wore the pale sweater she saved for school meetings.
She pointed toward the backyard, then folded her arms.
“They told her,” I whispered.
“They told her there was an investigation,” Ms. Alvarez said. “They didn’t tell her where you are.”
My stepmom looked toward the county car.
I slid down until the window showed only sky.
Ms. Alvarez didn’t tell me to sit up. She moved her folder onto the dashboard so there was nothing between us.
After several minutes, the investigator returned and spoke through her open window.
“The kennel is there,” he said quietly. “So is a red bucket. We’re documenting the area.”
“Did she move anything?” I asked.
He leaned slightly so I could see his face. “I don’t know. That’s why we take photographs and compare what we find with other information.”
“What information?”
“Your school attendance. Notes from staff. Anything that helps establish when you were tired and what you said before adults had time to speak with one another.”
I thought of all the mornings I had put my head on my folded arms and promised myself I would only close my eyes for one second.
The investigator went back toward the house. A camera flashed near the fence. My stepmom followed him as far as the edge of the yard, talking with both hands now. I couldn’t hear her through the closed windows.
“She’s saying I lie,” I said.
Ms. Alvarez watched the house. “She may say many things. Our job is to document facts.”
At school that afternoon, the social worker had printed my attendance record. There were circles around mornings when I had been late and notes beside days when I had fallen asleep in class.
My teacher sat at the far end of the table. She had changed blouses since yesterday, but the same pen rested beside her hand.
“I wrote these before I knew about the kennel,” she told Ms. Alvarez. “I thought Emily might be sick or having trouble sleeping.”
“Did she give you explanations?”
My teacher glanced at me before answering. “She said she was fine.”
Heat moved up my neck. “I had to.”
“I know,” she said.
She didn’t sound hurt. That made it worse for a moment, then better.
The school nurse brought in a separate page. She had recorded the dates I came to her office asking to lie down. She had also written that I sometimes smelled like damp dirt even after I took off my coat.
Nobody asked me to explain that smell.
The papers stayed on the table, all those mornings lined up in black ink. Until then, I had thought each day disappeared when I made it through. I hadn’t known adults had been leaving small marks behind.
Near the end of the day, the principal entered and closed the door.
“Emily’s stepmother has been informed that Emily won’t be released to her today,” she said. “She’s requested a meeting with the school.”
My teacher’s fingers tightened around the pen.
“When?” Ms. Alvarez asked.
“Tomorrow morning.”
The principal looked at me, then back at the adults. “She says there has been a serious misunderstanding.”
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I stared at the circles on my attendance sheet.
The kennel had been photographed. The bucket had been found. Still, my stepmom was coming to school dressed for people to believe her.
