Chapter 9 - The Reckoning
Mark Novak flies home four days after the investigation opens, having heard everything secondhand and disbelieving most of it, right up until he sits across from Renata Cruz and sees the photographs.
The blanket under the floorboard.
The bruises, measured against a ruler for scale, a detail he can't stop staring at — a ruler, in the photo, next to his daughter's arm, an echo of the one that woke her up and started all of this that he'll never be told about and wouldn't survive knowing.
"She told me she was sleeping in her room," he says, to no one, to the photographs, to himself. "Every night. I called every night."
"Children learn to protect the adults who aren't protecting them," Renata says, not unkindly. "It's a survival skill. It isn't a lie she told you. It's a lie she was forced to keep."
Mark's hands are shaking around the folder.
"What happens to Diane?"
"That's an active investigation. Likely charges — child endangerment, at minimum. Possibly more, depending on what the physical evidence supports."
"I didn't know," Mark says. "I swear to God I didn't know."
"I believe you didn't know," Renata says. "I'm less interested in whether you believe that's an excuse."
He goes to see Emily that evening, at Carol's house, standing awkwardly in the doorway of her borrowed room like a stranger asking permission to enter his own daughter's life.
Emily looks up from the bed, the fox comforter pooled around her knees.
"Hi, Daddy."
"Hi, baby."
He doesn't know what to say next. Every apology in his head sounds too small for what it needs to cover.
"Are you gonna make me go back?" Emily asks. Flat. Bracing.
"No," he says, and his voice breaks on the single syllable. "No, never. I promise."
Emily studies him the way she studied Ms. Bennett in the classroom — checking whether this is the real kind of promise or the kind that evaporates by lunch.
"Okay," she says finally, and pats the space beside her on the bed, an invitation more generous than he currently deserves.
He sits. He doesn't touch her, waits for her to decide the distance. After a moment, she leans, just slightly, until her shoulder rests against his arm.
May you like
It isn't fixed. Not close to fixed. But it's a beginning small enough to be honest about, which is more than either of them have had in years.
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