Chapter 2 - The Name Richard Wanted Out of Our House
Richard denied locking Lucy in the cabinet.
At first.
“She shut herself in there.”
Lucy shook her head immediately.
“No.”
Richard looked at her.
That look alone told me my daughter had learned to fear contradicting him.
I stepped between them.
“Get your keys.”
“Amanda.”
“Now.”
He laughed once.
“You’re throwing me out over a tantrum?”
“I’m getting Lucy out of here.”
That stopped him.
The house belonged to both of us.
We had bought it together three years after our wedding, with a large mortgage and money from the sale of my Bethesda townhouse.
I could not simply declare the mansion mine.
But I could take my daughter somewhere safe while I figured out what had happened.
Richard was not Lucy’s legal father.
He had never adopted her.
Daniel’s parents remained part of her life after their son died—or at least I thought they had.
That relationship had become distant over the past two years.
Richard always said grief made people strange.
I had accepted that.
Lucy and I stayed with my sister Caroline in Rockville.
That night, after Lucy finally slept, I examined the bracelet.
A tiny silver disk hung between the pink beads.
One side had Lucy’s initials.
The other said:
Love, Dad. Always.
Daniel had ordered it months before the car accident that killed him.
Lucy had been too young to remember receiving it.
I had kept it until she turned seven.
Richard hated it from the beginning.
Not openly.
He would say things like:
“That’s awfully sentimental for school.”
Or:
“Maybe we shouldn’t keep teaching her to live in the past.”
I thought he was trying to help us move forward.
Now those sentences sounded different.
My phone buzzed.
Richard.
You’re making this much bigger than it was.
Then:
Lucy has been testing boundaries for months.
A third message came.
Ask her what she did before you judge me.
I stared at the screen.
Then Lucy appeared in the doorway.
She looked half asleep.
“What did you do?” I asked gently.
She looked frightened.
“I found Daddy’s box.”
“What box?”
“The one Richard said you threw away.”
I stopped.
“I never threw away Daniel’s things.”
May you like
Lucy looked confused.
“Then why did Richard tell me you did?”
