Chapter 2 - THE STORY TRENT HAD ALREADY TOLD
The surgeon spoke to Frank first.
Cassidy was stable. Her injuries required surgery, but nothing the doctor said suggested Frank should expect an immediate catastrophe. Cassidy would remain hospitalized and sedated for several hours.
Lydia was not allowed into the recovery area.
Frank should have felt relieved.
Instead, he watched Brock disappear around the corner without finishing their conversation.
A hospital social worker named Dana Reeves brought Lydia warm chocolate milk and sat with her at a small table near the family lounge.
Dana never asked Lydia what Trent had done.
She asked what Lydia needed.
A blanket.
Her elephant.
Papa.
Then Lydia said something Frank had not expected.
“Daddy called the sheriff before Mommy cried.”
Frank looked up.
Dana gently stopped him from questioning her.
“Let the child advocacy people handle details,” she said quietly. “You don’t want her interviewed five different ways by five adults.”
Frank understood.
He also hated it.
He had spent most of his life solving problems with his own hands. He had run heavy equipment, rebuilt engines, managed crews in winter conditions that shut down half the county.
Now the useful thing was apparently to wait.
At two in the morning, Cassidy’s husband, Trent Hale, still had not returned to the hospital.
That did not surprise Frank.
Trent had disappeared from the house before Frank arrived there earlier that evening, after Lydia had run barefoot to a neighbor.
What bothered Frank was something else.
Trent had been telling people for months that Cassidy was becoming unstable.
Too stressed from nursing.
Too emotional.
Too exhausted.
Frank had heard it at Thanksgiving when Cassidy left dinner early.
“She gets spun up,” Trent had told him.
Frank had believed enough of it to tell his daughter she might need to slow down.
Sitting beside Lydia now, he remembered Cassidy’s face when he had said it.
Not angry.
Disappointed.
“Papa?”
Lydia pushed the picture toward him.
She had added a man beside the cruiser.
A tan shirt.
Brown pants.
Frank did not ask who it was.
He already knew.
But beneath the drawing Lydia had made one more detail.
In the window of the house stood Cassidy.
And beside her stood Trent.
May you like
Which meant Brock had not arrived after the violence.
He had been there while both of them were still inside.
