Chapter 1 - The Phone Bethany Wouldn’t Let Daniel Touch
Nathan pushed open the guest-bathroom door expecting to find his daughter washing frosting off her hands.
Instead, four-year-old Rosie was wedged behind the toilet.
Her strawberry-blonde hair stuck to one damp cheek. The silver stars on her hoodie were bunched beneath her chin where she had pulled her knees against her chest. A bruise was beginning to darken along one cheek, and several small marks showed on her arms.
Nathan had his phone out before he consciously decided to reach for it.
He took several quick photographs.
Then he crouched.
Rosie scrambled into his arms so fast that one of her sneakers struck the cabinet.
“Dad… Aunt Bethany locked me in here.”
Nathan lifted her and carried her down the hall toward the dining room.
The birthday table was still covered in pink paper plates, half-eaten cake and unopened presents. Conversation stopped when Nathan entered with Rosie clinging to him.
His older sister Bethany sat beside the window with a glass of red wine in one hand.
She didn’t stand.
“She was misbehaving. Someone had to teach her.”
Rosie pressed her face against Nathan’s neck.
Nathan crossed the room.
The punch was fast and ugly.
His fist caught Bethany across the face. Her wine glass slipped from her hand and struck the carpet, spreading red across the cream-colored fibers.
“You touched my daughter again?”
Diane hurried toward him as Nathan turned for the front door.
Their cousin Daniel stood near the birthday table. Nathan noticed him looking at the marks on Rosie’s arms.
Not surprised.
Terrified.
Diane caught Nathan by the shoulder.
“You leave now, and this family is finished!”
Nathan knocked her hand away and opened the door.
Behind him, Walter stood. Nathan’s seventy-one-year-old father picked up a heavy drinking glass from the table.
Daniel was still staring at Rosie.
Then he looked away.
Nathan faced his mother.
“She is my family. You aren’t.”
Walter threw the glass.
Nathan turned his body, completely covering Rosie.
The glass missed his head by inches and exploded against the wall beside the doorway.
Nathan stepped outside.
Then he heard furniture scrape behind him.
He glanced back.
His phone was lying on the edge of the dining table where he had set it down during the chaos.
Daniel lunged for it.
Bethany caught his wrist first.
For the first time all afternoon, the calm disappeared from her face.
Daniel pulled harder.
Bethany did too.
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And Nathan realized neither of them cared about the shattered glass, his punch, or even the fact that he was leaving.
They cared about what was on his phone.
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