“Mom, I’m really tired.”
“Where’s Tyler?”
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs with her back to me.
Eight, nine seconds.
I counted them.
“I don’t want to talk about it tonight.”
Then her door closed, and a moment later I heard the shower running.
My daughter had never once showered at one in the morning.
Her phone was face down on the kitchen counter next to her clutch.
I had never gone through that girl’s phone. Seventeen years, that was the rule in our house, and I’d kept it.
I was wiping the counter around it when the screen lit up on its own.
A message appeared far enough that I could read the first line.
“Please tell me you got home okay. And don’t believe what Tyler said about you.”
The sender was Eli.
Then the screen went dark.
I stood there with the dishcloth in my hand and put the phone back down exactly where it had been, face down, square to the edge.
Then I went upstairs past my daughter’s door and woke my husband at four in the morning.
Mark pushed himself upright.
“What happened?”
“Another boy texted Maddie.”
“What boy?”
“Eli.”
“Who’s Eli?”
