“I may hear things I should have noticed earlier.”
“If that happened, that’s on me.”
Nia looked toward him.
“Not you.”
He waited.
Then:
“Has Celeste been treating you differently from Jordan and Layla?”
Nia shrugged.
Aaron waited.
Children often fill silence if adults resist rescuing them from it.
Eventually:
“Sometimes.”
“What happens sometimes?”
“She says they need more because they don’t have what I have.”
“What do you have?”
Nia looked confused.
“Mom’s money.”
Aaron’s stomach twisted.
“What else?”
“She says I get special treatment.”
“Do you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does she mean?”
Nia picked at a loose thread on her jeans.
“Grandma takes me places.”
Danielle’s mother.
Marjorie.
“She takes Jordan and Layla sometimes too.”
“Celeste says it’s different.”
“What else?”
“My room.”
Aaron frowned.
“What about it?”
“She said mine is bigger.”
It was.
By roughly twenty square feet.
The bedroom had originally been Nia’s before Celeste and her children moved in.
Aaron had offered to rearrange rooms.
Jordan had chosen the basement bedroom because it was farther from adults.
Layla chose the room beside Nia’s.
Nobody had complained.
Until apparently later.
“She makes me clean upstairs because I have the bigger room.”
“How often?”
“Most Saturdays.”
“Do Jordan and Layla clean?”
“Sometimes.”
Nia’s voice became smaller.
“But if they have activities, I do their stuff too.”
Aaron closed his eyes briefly.
“What about food?”
Silence.
“Nia?”
“Celeste says I snack too much.”
“Do you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happens?”
“She puts snacks in a cabinet and says ask first.”
“That is normal.”
Aaron said it carefully.
“Does everyone ask?”
Nia shook her head.
“Jordan and Layla know the code.”
A locked snack cabinet.
Aaron had seen it.
Celeste told him it was because the children ate junk constantly.
He never asked whether all three knew the code.
“Anything else?”
Nia’s eyes filled again.
“My birthday.”
Aaron’s heart tightened.
“What about your birthday?”
“You were in Cincinnati.”
He remembered.
A water main ruptured beneath a school project.
He returned a day later.
Celeste had hosted the party.
“What happened?”
“Grandma gave me the camera.”
Danielle’s mother had bought Nia a beginner digital camera.
Aaron remembered.
“She took it back?”
“Celeste did.”
Aaron stared.
“Why?”
“She said it was too expensive for a nine-year-old.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Aaron stood.
“Stay here.”
Nia looked frightened.
“I’m not mad at you.”
He repeated it because he needed her to hear.
“Stay.”
He walked into his home office.
Opened the closet.
Nothing.