“I just need to know what he is doing in there,” I said.
“If you go looking for dirt, you will find it,” Ruth said, her iron slamming down onto a collar. “Even if you have to dig the hole yourself.”
I stood up, the small box in my pocket knocking against the counter.
“I have to pick Emma up from her transition class,” I said.
Ruth did not look up from her work, her shoulder rising and falling with the rhythmic force of her arm.
“Do not let him see you looking at him like he is a thief,” she said.
The drive back to our house was silent, Emma falling asleep in her car seat before we even crossed the city line. Her head leaned against the window, her mouth slightly open, completely unaware of the weight resting on the shelf in our kitchen.
At six o’clock, while Evan was still at the high school grading papers, I went into Emma’s bedroom.
The silver nightlight in the corner cast a faint, steady glow over her small wooden bookshelf.
I reached for the brown stuffed bear my father had given her two birthdays ago. Its synthetic fur was worn thin at the ears, and the seams along the neck were starting to pull apart.
