The first thing I saw when I opened my mother’s front door was my five-year-old daughter sitting on the couch like she had been told not to breathe.
Charlotte’s hands were pressed between her knees.
Her cheeks were wet.
Two police officers stood in front of her, one older with a tired face, one younger with a notebook still open.
Behind them, my mother stood with her arms folded, while my sister Kendra balanced Nora on one hip and whispered into her hair.
Nora was eating a cracker.
I had come home from Austin a day early because a client canceled the last session of my work trip, and all the way from the airport I had pictured Charlotte asleep in the little guest room with her dragon book open on her chest.
