Chapter 2 - The Drive Home
I buckled Lucy into her car seat with hands that would not stop shaking. She winced when the belt brushed her wrist.
"Does it hurt here?" I asked.
She nodded, then immediately shook her head. "I'm okay, Mommy. Don't be mad."
"I am not mad at you."
"Grandma said if I cried, you would ruin Sunday."
Ben climbed behind the wheel and shut the door too hard.
"Mom's seventy," he said. "You can't scream at her like that."
"She pulled a chair out from under a child."
"She was moving Lucy away from the table."
"Look at her wrist."
Ben glanced in the mirror. Lucy hid her arm behind her stuffed rabbit, Button.
"We'll put ice on it," he said.
I stared through the windshield at Celia's immaculate hedges. "Pull over."
"What?"
"You're not driving us home while you explain why your mother is allowed to hurt our kid. Pull over."
We were barely two blocks away when he stopped. I moved to the driver's seat. Ben got out, walked around, and sat beside me without a word.
At urgent care, a nurse photographed the swelling and a physician confirmed a soft-tissue injury, no fracture. I asked that Lucy's own words be recorded. I gave the doctor the time and place. I felt absurd for being so precise until I remembered the family table and its wall of silence.
Ben waited in the hallway.
Lucy picked at the paper on the examination bed. "Mommy? If Grandma is nice next time, do I have to go back?"
"Not unless you're safe."
She studied me as if checking whether adults could mean what they said.
"She makes me eat the black one when I ask about Daddy."
The room seemed to tilt.
"What black one?"
"The plate. She calls it the black plate. For bad girls."
I had never heard of such a thing.
That evening, after Lucy fell asleep on the couch, Ben found me at the kitchen counter photographing her medical paperwork.
"You're building a case against my mother?"
"I'm keeping a record."
"You know how she'll react."
"I care how Lucy reacts. She was afraid to ask for food."
Ben sat down heavily. "Mom gets harsh when she feels disrespected. I grew up with it."
"That doesn't make it normal."
He rubbed his face. "Please don't tell anybody outside the family."
His phone rang. CE LIA filled the screen, separated by a space because he had saved her number under an old nickname.
He turned his back to answer. I heard only his side.
"Yes. I know. No, she hasn't. I'll take care of it."
When he came back, he was pale.
"What did she want?"
May you like
He wouldn't meet my eyes.
"She said the police may be coming. She already reported that you attacked her."
