Chapter 3: The Locked Drawer
Sophie's voice was barely above a breath.
"Grandma has papers with Mommy's name on them.
She showed them to the lady who visits on Thursdays.
She said Mommy signed something and now Mommy has to do what Grandma says or we have to leave."
I stayed crouched at her level for a moment longer than I needed to.
"What lady, sweetheart?
Do you know her name?"
Sophie shook her head.
"She has red hair.
She brings a black bag.
Like a doctor bag."
I stood up.
Elise had gone very still beside the sink.
She wasn't looking at Sophie.
She wasn't looking at me.
She was looking at the floor, and her jaw was set in a way I recognized — the way it looked when she had already decided not to say something.
"Elise."
"Not now, Nathan."
"Yes.
Now."
She turned off the faucet.
The sudden quiet made the voices from the dining room sound closer.
"Sophie," she said softly, "go upstairs and wash your hands, okay?
Daddy and I need to talk."
Sophie looked at me.
I nodded.
She climbed down from the step stool and padded out of the kitchen without another word.
She didn't look back, which told me she had learned not to.
The moment her footsteps reached the stairs, I turned to Elise.
"What did you sign?"
She pressed her bandaged hands flat against the counter.
"It was nothing.
A household agreement.
Your mother said it was just to keep things organized while you were traveling so much."
"A household agreement."
"Nathan—"
"What does it say?"
"I don't know exactly.
She had it prepared.
She said it was standard." Elise's voice stayed even, but her hands weren't.
The bandage on her left hand had started to pull at the edge.
"She said if I didn't sign it, she would tell you I'd been making her feel unwelcome.
That I'd been trying to push her out."
I stared at her.
"And you believed that would work on me?"
Something moved across her face.
Not anger.
Older than anger.
"I believed it enough that I signed."
That landed differently than she probably intended.
Not because I thought she was weak.
Because I understood, in that moment, that my wife had been alone in this house with my mother for months, managing something she never told me about, and she had made the calculation that staying quiet was safer than asking me to choose.
She had not been sure I would choose her.
I needed a moment with that.
"Where is the drawer?" I said.
"Nathan, don't."
"Where is it?"
Elise closed her eyes.
"Her bedroom.
The small dresser beside the window.
She keeps the key on the chain she wears around her neck."
I walked out of the kitchen.
The dining room was directly ahead.
I could hear my mother's laugh above the other voices — that particular laugh she used when she wanted a room to know she was the most comfortable person in it.
I didn't go into the dining room.
I turned left and went up the stairs.
My mother's bedroom door was closed but unlocked.
I pushed it open.
The small dresser Sophie had described was exactly where Elise said — beside the window, pale wood, three drawers, a small brass lock on the bottom one.
I tried the drawer.
Locked.
I stood there for a moment, looking at it.
Then I heard the dining room go quiet below me.
And then I heard my mother's voice, closer than it should have been, coming from the bottom of the stairs.
May you like
"Nathan?
Is that you up there?"
