Chapter 3: The Name on the Screen
Daniel looked at the phone.
Then at Nora.
He answered it.
"Marcus." His voice was flat.
"I'm going to need you to come over."
A pause on the line.
"Right now?" Marcus said.
"Right now."
Daniel ended the call and set the phone face-up on the counter.
He didn't look at Nora again.
He picked up Lily and carried her to the living room sofa, sat her down gently, and pulled the torn edges of her dress together with his fingers like he could hold something in place by doing it.
"You stay here," he told her.
"Don't come into the kitchen."
Lily nodded.
Her eyes were still wet but she wasn't crying anymore.
She was watching him the way children watch when they understand that something large is happening and they are not allowed to ask about it yet.
Daniel walked back into the kitchen and closed the door behind him.
Nora hadn't moved from the wall.
"Marcus is your divorce attorney," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"He's my attorney, yes."
"So that's it.
You call your lawyer before you even call the police."
"I haven't decided what I'm calling yet." Daniel pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down.
He placed the brown bottle in the center of the table between them.
"Sit down, Nora."
She didn't move.
"Sit down."
She sat.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
The marble floor was still wet where the tea had spread.
The cup lay in two pieces near the table leg.
The foam had dried into a pale crust along the grout lines.
"How long have you been planning this?" Daniel asked.
"I wasn't planning anything."
"The bottle has no label.
You told our six-year-old daughter it was something to help me sleep." He leaned forward.
"How long?"
Nora's jaw tightened.
"You were going to take Lily.
You said it yourself — you were filing for full custody.
What was I supposed to do?"
"Not this."
"You don't know what it's like to be told you're going to lose your child."
"I know exactly what it's like," Daniel said.
"I've been watching you do it to her for two years."
That landed.
Nora's chin dropped slightly.
She recovered fast, but not fast enough.
"What does that mean?"
"It means Lily flinches when you raise your voice.
It means she stopped eating dinner at the table six months ago because she said it made her stomach hurt.
It means my six-year-old daughter watched you put something in a bottle last night and knew — without anyone telling her — that it was wrong." He stood up.
"That's what it means."
Nora's eyes went to the bottle.
"You can't prove anything."
"I don't have to prove it tonight."
"Daniel—"
"Marcus will be here in twenty minutes.
Until then, I'd like you to sit there and think very carefully about whether you want to keep telling me you weren't planning anything."
Nora went quiet.
But her hands, flat on the table, pressed down just slightly harder.
May you like
And then she said something that changed the temperature of the entire room.
"You should ask Marcus why he called me last week."
