Karen stopped talking.
My father’s truck pulled into the driveway so quickly its headlights swept across the front windows.
He came through the door without closing it behind him.
“Where is she?”
I had never heard his voice sound like that.
I stood beneath the silver blanket.
“Dad.”
He crossed the room in three steps and dropped to his knees.
His hands hovered near my shoulders as if he was afraid touching me might hurt.
“Are you okay?”
I began crying again.
He pulled me against him.
Karen moved toward us.
“This has been completely blown out of proportion. She spilled juice on my dress, had a tantrum, and I sent her outside for a moment to calm down.”
My father looked over my shoulder.
“You locked the door?”
Karen hesitated.
“For a minute.”
“You locked her outside?”
“She needed to learn that actions have consequences.”
My father’s arms tightened around me.
“She is seven.”
The room went silent.
The officer asked Karen to step into the other room.
I remember fragments after that.
The paramedic saying my body temperature was low but not dangerously so. My father finding socks and wrapping a blanket over the emergency foil. Grandma arriving twenty minutes later in a coat thrown over her nightclothes. Her face when she saw me.
She did not run to Karen.
She came directly to me.
“You called,” she whispered.
I pressed my face into her shoulder.
