The Day I Came Home to a Party That Broke My Daughter

Renee came in carrying a grocery bag, and she stopped in the kitchen when she saw me standing by the counter.

“What are you doing here,” she said.

Then she looked past me at Brianna, and something changed in her face.

She is not a stupid woman.

She looked at her daughter and she looked at me and she added it up in about two seconds.

She set the bag down and walked past me and down the stairs.

I heard the drawer open.

I heard it close.

She came back up with the folder in her hand and stood in the kitchen holding it against her chest like a shield.

“You went through my things,” she said.

“That’s your copy,” I said.

“You can have it.”

She looked at me for a while.

Then she walked out the back door, got in her car, and drove off with the folder on the passenger seat.

Brianna stood in the doorway with her arms crossed and watched the car go.

“She’ll burn it tonight,” she said.

“She doesn’t know you already took pictures.”

I said, “Does she keep another one?”

Brianna nodded.

“There’s a second copy,” she said.

“She made two.

The other one isn’t in the house.”

I asked her where it was.

She looked at me then, and I saw that she was just as scared as Lily had been, and had been for a long time, and that no one at that party had noticed her either.

“Storage unit on Wells Road,” she said.

“Unit 114.

It’s in a box with winter coats.”
Chapter 6 – What My Daughter Told Me on the Porch
That night I picked Lily up from Carol’s and brought her home, and after dinner she asked if we could sit on the back porch.

Carol came over and sat in the far chair with a cup of coffee and didn’t say anything, and I think Lily was glad she was there.

We sat for a while.

The crickets were loud.

Lily had her feet pulled up on the chair under her and she was watching the yard like she was checking it.

Then she said, “Renee said the party was a test.”

I said, “A test for what?”

“To see if I was tough enough to stay in the family,” she said.

“That’s what she said in the kitchen before.

She said some kids get sent back and some kids get to stay, and the ones who stay are the ones who don’t cry.”

I sat there and did not say anything for a second, because I wanted to be careful with what I said next.

Lily looked at Carol, and Carol nodded at her, just once.

Then Lily said the rest of it in one long run, the way kids do when they’ve been holding something for a long time and finally found the door.

She said Renee told her before the party that the water was part of the game and that if she cried, people would know she didn’t belong there, and if she told me, I would be mad at her and not at Renee.

She said Renee told her that I worked too much to take care of her anyway and that staying with Renee was what I wanted.

I asked her who put the ribbon on her wrists.

She said Renee did.

And the chain was from the shed, and Renee put it around her shoulders and told her it was the game.

I looked at Carol, and Carol was looking at the floor.

I got up and walked to the end of the porch and stood there for a minute with my back to them, because I did not want my daughter to see my face right then.

When I came back I sat down on the step in front of her chair so I was lower than her, so she would not have to look up at me.

I told her none of that was true.

Not one word of it.

I told her I was sorry I didn’t come home earlier, and I meant it more than anything I have ever said in my life.

Then I went inside and made a call.

Renee’s brother Marcus is the only person in her family who has ever been straight with me.

We used to fish together before the wedding.

He came to the party that day and left early and I hadn’t thought about it until that moment.

He picked up on the second ring.

He sounded like he had been waiting.

I asked him straight out.

“Did you see what happened in the yard?”

He was quiet for a second.

Then he said, “I saw all of it.

I was parked in the driveway for the first part.

I saw her pour it and I saw her walk backward with her phone to get a better shot of it.”

I asked him why he didn’t say anything.

He said, “Because you don’t know my sister like I do, Daniel.

I’ve been scared of her since I was nine years old.

I’m not proud of that.”

I told him I understood, and I did, and I also told him I was going to need him to say that again, out loud, to somebody who writes it down.

He said, “Tell me when and where.”

After that I called Renee.

She was at her mother’s house by then.

I told her she needed to come get her things and only her things, and that she was not staying under this roof another night.

She started in about the folder and about Brianna and about me going through her private property.

I let her talk until she ran out of breath.

Then I said, “There’s a lock on your office door and a key in the kitchen drawer.

You might want to ask yourself how I got in.”

I hung up.