“How dare you put your hands on me?”
Daniel released her immediately.
“Don’t touch the evidence.”
“Evidence?” She laughed sharply. “You’ve turned your mother into a criminal because your wife cried convincingly?”
June began trembling.
I crouched beside her.
“Sweetheart, look at me. You’re safe.”
She stared at her grandmother.
“Are you mad because I found the little door?”
Evelyn’s eyes narrowed.
“You should have kept your mouth shut.”
Daniel turned.
“What did you just say to my daughter?”
Evelyn seemed to realize too late that she had spoken aloud.
“She’s been snooping in things that aren’t hers.”
June buried her face in my shoulder.
I picked her up.
Her rabbit pressed between us, its blue fabric damp where she’d been chewing one ear.
Daniel looked at his mother.
“You will never speak to her that way again.”
Evelyn began crying.
Not the helpless crying of someone overwhelmed by grief.
It was the familiar performance that had ended every serious conversation in this family for decades.
She covered her mouth, swayed toward the sofa, and whispered that Thomas would be ashamed of Daniel.
Ordinarily, he would have rushed to her.
Instead, he picked up his father’s box.
“Dad would be ashamed that I didn’t listen to Sarah.”
That was when Evelyn stopped crying.
The change was instantaneous.
“You walk out with those papers,” she said, “and you’ll lose your mother.”
