Chapter 1
“A three-year-old… You broke all the rules. Now, I have none.”
Tove stopped moving.
So did everyone else.
Mireya remained against Margaret’s side behind me, breathing more steadily now but still clutching her inhaler pouch with both hands. My mother had one arm around her and the other pressed against the wicker chair where Tove had shoved her.
Chase was trying to get up beneath the broken planter stand.
I did not look at him.
I looked at Tove.
Then at Margaret’s handbag in my hand.
“You wanted this badly enough to leave my daughter struggling for air.”
Her expression changed.
Not much.
Enough.
“I was taking my own things.”
I opened the bag.
Lipstick.
Keys.
Reading glasses.
A folded handkerchief.
Then an orange pharmacy bottle that did not belong to my mother.
Margaret stared.
“That’s Mireya’s.”
My jaw tightened.
Not the inhaler.
Another medication kept in the child’s emergency pouch.
I looked at Tove.
“How did this get into my mother’s handbag?”
She said nothing.
Margaret’s face went pale.
“I never put that there.”
I believed her.
Mireya looked at the bottle, then at Tove.
“She hides my stuff.”
The conservatory became completely silent.
I crouched in front of my daughter.
“What stuff?”
Her little fingers tightened around the pouch.
“My medicine. My mask. Sometimes Bunny.”
Tove snapped, “She’s confused.”
I looked up.
“No.”
My voice stayed low.
“She’s remembering.”
Then Margaret whispered:
“This has happened before.”
I turned.
She looked ashamed.
Not guilty.
Afraid.
May you like
And that was when I understood the inhaler beneath the stone table had not been an impulsive cruelty.
Tove had been interfering with my daughter’s care for weeks.
