“Six weeks,” I said.
“You’ve known for six weeks he was out.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
“Because you would have given him a chance,” he said.
“You always give him a chance.”
“That’s not—”
“He knew about art class, Hannah.”
His voice was very quiet.
“He knew it was Saturday.”
“He knew it was the Arts Center.”
“He knew it was nine-thirty.”
“He was waiting at the only light between our house and that building.”
“I never told anyone but Meredith and my mother.”
“So who told him?”
The ground dropped out from under me.
Because I remembered.
Five weeks ago.
A text from a number I didn’t know.
“Hannah, it’s Dale.”
“I’ve changed.”
“Three years sober.”
“I just want to know she’s okay.”
I should have blocked it.
I didn’t.
I thought about Ruby at seven.
Asking me if her real dad was a bad man.
I thought about how I’d answered.
“He was sick, baby.”
“Sick people can get better.”
I thought he deserved to know she was okay.
Just that.
So I sent him one picture.
Ruby holding her sunflower painting.
And under it, because I was proud, because I was stupid, I typed one line.
“She starts real art classes Saturday at the Arts Center!”
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
“I told him,” I whispered.
“Oh my God.”
“I told him.”
Nobody said anything.
I thought about every mother I’d ever judged on the news.
Every one I’d watched and thought, How could she not see it?
How could she let him back in?
I’d been so sure I was different.
I’d been so sure I’d know.
I’d sent a picture of my daughter to the man who broke my arm.
With a smiley face.
And a time.
And a place.
Scout pressed against my leg.
“That’s not all,” Meredith said quietly.
I looked up.
“In the ER,” she said.
“You answered your phone.”
“A man asked which hospital.”
“You said Mercy Ridge.”
“I was standing right there.”
“Ruby was twenty feet behind those doors screaming his name.”
