Chapter 6
The police came while Brenda was packing.
She had tried to leave before they arrived.
Dad blocked the door.
Not with violence.
With his body.
With certainty.
For once, someone blocked her path instead of mine.
Two officers stepped into the house.
A woman named Officer Ramirez knelt in front of me and asked if she could talk to me.
I looked at Dad.
He nodded.
Aunt Laura stayed close.
I told the officer about the kennel.
The pantry.
The closet.
The way Brenda pinched my arm under the dinner table if I spoke too much.
The way she threw away my mother’s birthday card because “dead women don’t need parties.”
Dad turned away when I said that.
I think he cried.
Officer Ramirez listened to every word.
She did not interrupt.
She did not say I was confused.
She did not ask what I did to make Brenda angry.
When I finished, she said, “You were very brave.”
I did not feel brave.
I felt cold.
Brenda was arrested that night for child endangerment and unlawful restraint.
She screamed when the officers put cuffs on her.
“I’m pregnant!”
Officer Ramirez said, “Then you should avoid committing crimes.”
Aunt Laura snorted.
Dad did not smile.
Brenda looked at him as they led her out.
“You’ll regret this. When my baby is born, you’ll come crawling back.”
Dad looked at her.
“No.”
One word.
No shouting.
No trembling.
Just no.
After they left, the house felt too quiet.
I sat on the sofa wrapped in three blankets.
Dad sat on the floor in front of me.
Aunt Laura made hot chocolate in the kitchen and cried into the whipped cream.
Dad took my hand gently.
“Emily, I need to ask you something.”
I nodded.
“Do you want to stay here tonight?”
I looked around the house.
The pantry door.
The hallway.
The front yard beyond the window.
The kennel was still out there.
“No,” I whispered.
Dad’s face tightened with pain.
“Okay.”
May you like
We went to Aunt Laura’s.
And for the first time in months, I slept behind a door that nobody locked from the outside.
