Chapter 2
Dr. Cole asked Andrew and Elaine to step outside.
Elaine refused.
I looked at her.
She stepped outside.
Andrew followed.
That left Lucy, the doctor, and me.
My daughter sat on the exam table with the blanket around her head again.
I hated that blanket.
Not because it covered what happened.
Because Lucy wanted it to.
I sat beside her.
“What does Grandma mean when she says you embarrass her?”
Lucy looked toward the closed door.
That told me enough to lower my voice.
“You can tell me.”
“She says I wiggle.”
“Okay.”
“And talk too loud.”
“Okay.”
“And ask for you.”
That one hurt.
“When?”
“At dinners.”
“What dinners?”
She shrugged.
“Grandma dinners.”
I looked at Dr. Cole.
She looked back.
Neither of us knew.
That mattered.
Andrew had been taking Lucy somewhere without telling me.
“How often?”
Lucy held up fingers, changed her mind, then shrugged.
Children do not measure repetition the way adults do.
“What happens at Grandma dinners?”
“People ask me questions.”
“What questions?”
“Who is boss.”
My breathing slowed.
“What do you say?”
Lucy looked embarrassed.
“Mommy.”
I smiled faintly.
“And then?”
“Grandma gets mad.”
There it was.
I asked carefully:
“What does she want you to say?”
Lucy whispered:
“Daddy.”
Silence.
Dr. Cole’s expression changed.
I stayed still.
“Did Dad tell you that too?”
Lucy nodded.
“He says it makes Grandma happy.”
The shaved hair suddenly became smaller than the lesson underneath it.
Lucy had not been punished for brushing slowly.
She had been punished because she kept refusing to repeat the answer they wanted.
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My daughter knew who ran the Whitaker organization.
Apparently my husband and his mother wished she didn’t.
