Chapter 10: She Comes to the Door
She came on a Thursday evening, five days after we'd left the clinic.
I saw her car from the upstairs window.
She sat in it for almost ten minutes before she got out.
She was carrying nothing — no bag, no file, nothing to negotiate with.
That was new.
I went downstairs.
Sarah was in the kitchen.
I told her who was at the door.
"Do you want me there?" she said.
"Yes."
We answered the door together.
My mother looked smaller than I remembered.
She was dressed carefully, as she always was, but something in her bearing had shifted.
She looked at me, then at Sarah, then back at me.
"I'd like to come in," she said.
"You can say what you need to say here," I said.
She accepted that without argument.
Another new thing.
"I want to explain myself," she said.
"I'm listening."
She looked at her hands.
"When your father d*ed, I was frightened.
I know that's not an excuse.
But the money — I told myself it was just protecting what we'd built together.
That you'd have it eventually.
That it wasn't really taking anything." She paused.
"I told myself a lot of things."
"You had a doctor write a false assessment of my wife."
"I was going to—" She stopped.
Started again.
"I thought if Sarah wasn't in the picture, things would be simpler.
I know how that sounds."
"Do you know what you did to Lily?"
Her face tightened.
"I never meant to hurt Lily."
"She was locked in a freezer."
"I panicked.
She'd seen too much and I panicked and I made a terrible decision and I have not slept properly since." Her voice cracked on the last word.
"She's my granddaughter.
I love her."
"Love doesn't lock a child in a freezer."
She had no answer for that.
Sarah spoke for the first time.
"Why are you here?"
My mother looked at her.
"To tell you that I'll cooperate.
With the solicitors.
With whatever process needs to happen.
I'll return what I took from the estate.
All of it." She swallowed.
"I'm not asking for forgiveness.
I'm not asking to come back in.
I just — I needed you to hear it from me."
The three of us stood in the open doorway.
"Lily is speaking to a counselor," I said.
"She told the counselor what you said to her in the freezer.
That nobody believes little kids."
My mother closed her eyes.
"She asked the counselor if that was true," I said.
"The counselor told her it wasn't."
My mother opened her eyes.
They were wet.
"Is she — is she all right?"
"She's doing better than you deserve," Sarah said.
It wasn't cruel.
It was just true.
My mother nodded once.
She took a breath.
"I'll have my solicitor contact yours tomorrow."
She turned and walked back to her car.
I closed the door.
Sarah leaned against the wall beside me.
We stood there for a moment in the quiet hallway.
"Do you believe her?" she said.
"About cooperating?
Maybe." I looked at the closed door.
"About the rest of it — I don't know yet.
I'm not sure it matters right now."
"What matters right now?"
I thought about Lily upstairs, asleep, her nightlight on, her stuffed rabbit tucked under her arm the way it always was.
"Getting Lily's trust restored," I said.
"Making sure Voss faces the board.
Making sure none of this can happen again."
May you like
Sarah pushed off the wall.
"Then let's do that."
