Chapter 3: What Sarah Didn't Know I Knew
I carried Lily upstairs.
She was quiet the whole way, her head on my shoulder, one hand still curled against her chest where Diane's shoe had come down.
I set her on her bed and pulled the blanket up to her chin.
"Daddy's going to be right downstairs," I said.
"Okay?"
She looked at me with those big, serious eyes.
"Is Grandma going to be mad?"
"No, sweetheart.
Grandma isn't going to do anything."
I kissed her forehead and pulled her door almost closed.
Then I stood in the hallway for a moment with my hand flat against the wall.
I needed thirty seconds.
Just thirty seconds to decide what kind of man I was going to be in the next hour.
I went back downstairs.
Diane was in the kitchen.
She had put her phone away and was standing at the counter with a glass of water she wasn't drinking.
"Sit down," I said.
"Ryan—"
"Sit.
Down."
She sat.
I pulled out the chair across from her and stayed standing.
"Sarah is coming home early.
You knew that and didn't tell me.
Why?"
Diane wrapped both hands around the glass.
"I didn't want you to worry."
"You didn't want me to worry."
"She called me this morning.
She said the conference ended early and she was driving back tonight."
"And you didn't call me."
"I thought you'd be home Friday.
I thought there was time to—" She stopped.
"Time to what?
Clean up?
Put the mattress away?
Teach Lily not to say anything?"
Diane's jaw tightened.
"You're twisting this."
"I saw the lock, Mom.
I saw the mattress.
I saw the cup she drinks out of down there.
Lily put a drawing on the wall." My voice dropped.
"A four-year-old decorated her punishment room."
Diane set the glass down hard.
"She is not an easy child, Ryan.
You don't see it because you're never here.
You travel every week.
You leave that little girl with me for days at a time and you have no idea what it's like."
"So you locked her in the basement."
"I never locked her in.
The lock was to keep her from wandering at night."
"The lock was on the outside."
Silence.
"The lock," I said slowly, "was on the outside of the door.
You lock a door from the outside when you want to keep someone in.
Not when you want to keep them from wandering."
Diane looked away.
The front door opened.
Sarah stepped in with her bag over one shoulder, her coat still on, keys in her hand.
She stopped when she saw us both at the kitchen table.
Her eyes moved from me to Diane.
Then back to me.
"Ryan." Her voice was careful.
Too careful.
"You're home."
"Conference ended early," I said.
"Yours too, apparently."
She set her bag down slowly.
"Diane called me.
She said there was a situation."
I looked at my mother.
"You called her."
Diane said nothing.
"When I was upstairs with Lily," I said.
"That's who you were calling."
Sarah came into the kitchen.
She touched my arm.
"Let's not do this right now.
Let's just—"
"Lily was scrubbing the floor on her knees when I walked in." I kept my voice level.
"My mother's shoe came down on her hand.
She told me Diane makes her sleep in the basement when you're not home."
Sarah's hand dropped from my arm.
"I know about the mattress," I said.
"I know about the lock."
Sarah turned to Diane.
Something passed between them.
Fast.
A single look that lasted less than a second.
But I saw it.
"How long have you known?" I asked Sarah.
She turned back to me.
"Ryan, it's not what you think."
"How long have you known that my mother was putting our daughter in the basement?"
Sarah opened her mouth.
May you like
Closed it.
And in that pause — that one small pause before she found her words — I understood that the basement was not the worst thing in this house.
