“What kind?”
“Toast.”
Andre looked at Vanessa.
She threw both hands up.
“She has been refusing meals.”
Nia started crying.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Stop lying.”
Andre’s voice changed.
“Vanessa.”
She froze.
He had rarely spoken her name that way.
“Do not call my daughter a liar while I’m asking her a question.”
Vanessa stared.
“Your daughter?”
Andre immediately understood what he had said.
So did Caleb and Ava.
They were his children too.
This was not a biological dividing line he wanted to create.
He corrected himself.
“Our daughter.”
Vanessa laughed sharply.
“She certainly doesn’t behave like mine.”
Nia made a sound so quiet Andre almost missed it.
A breath breaking.
Andre looked toward his eldest daughter.
Then a chair scraped.
Ava stood.
The eight-year-old looked terrified.
“Ava?” Andre said.
She glanced at her mother.
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed.
“Ava, sit down.”
Ava did not.
She slipped one hand into the pocket of her cardigan.
When it came out, she was holding an old smartphone.
Andre recognized it.
His previous phone.
He had given it to the children six months earlier so they could use it for games and photographs without arguing over Vanessa’s tablet.
Ava held it against her chest.
“She’s not lying.”
Vanessa went still.
Andre turned.
“What?”
Ava’s voice shook.
“Nia isn’t lying.”
“Ava.”
Vanessa’s tone was low now.
Dangerously controlled.
“Give me the phone.”
Ava stepped backward.
Andre moved between them instinctively.
Vanessa approached.
“Ava, give it to me.”
“No.”
It might have been the first time Andre had ever heard his youngest daughter openly refuse her mother.
Vanessa reached.
Ava pulled away.
The phone slipped.
Vanessa’s palm struck it from her hand.
It hit the wooden floor and slid beneath a chair.
Ava cried out.
Andre stepped forward.
“Enough.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“She is disobeying me.”
“Because she has something she thinks I need to see.”
“She is eight.”
“Yes.”
Andre’s voice dropped.
“And she looks terrified of you.”
Vanessa went pale.
Caleb had not moved.
He sat at the table, hands in his lap, staring at his plate.
Andre crouched and retrieved the phone.
The screen was cracked at one corner but still lit.
Ava wiped her eyes.
“I took pictures.”
Andre looked at her.
“Of what?”
“Dinner.”
Vanessa interrupted.
“This is insane.”
Andre raised one hand.
She stopped.
He looked toward Ava.
“Show me.”
Ava unlocked the phone with a pattern.
Then opened the photo gallery.
The first photograph was dated three weeks earlier.
Caleb and Ava sat at the table eating hamburgers and fries.
Nia sat in the background beside the counter.
A small plate of plain rice rested in front of her.
Andre stopped breathing.
He swiped.
Another photograph.
Pizza boxes open on the table.
Caleb smiling.