Chapter 1 - The Bowl Vanessa Kicked Away Too Fast
Vanessa slammed Buddy’s metal dinner bowl onto the patio directly in front of Lily’s feet, scattering kibble across the concrete.
“Miss your dead mother?” she snapped. “Get on your knees and eat with the dog where you belong.”
Lily recoiled beside the patio table, pressing both hands against her pale-blue sweater. She was nine years old, and Rachel, her mother, had been dead for three years. Vanessa knew exactly which wound she was opening.
Buddy walked toward the scattered food. He was usually impossible around dinner. If Lily dropped half a cracker, he acted as if starvation were seconds away.
This time he stopped.
He lowered his nose, sniffed the food once, then backed away. His ears flattened and he began barking directly at Vanessa.
“Shut up, you useless mutt.”
Vanessa gave him one sharp kick to the side. Buddy jumped safely backward, startled but unharmed, then immediately moved closer to Lily and kept barking.
That was when I opened the back door.
I froze.
Lily was almost on the ground. Buddy was barking. Vanessa stood over both of them.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Vanessa stiffened. “She’s having another tantrum.”
Lily pointed toward the untouched food.
“Dad… Buddy only does that when she puts something in my food.”
I looked at my daughter.
“What do you mean?”
Vanessa laughed sharply. “Mark, seriously?”
Lily’s voice trembled. “Sometimes Vanessa makes my dinner when you work late. Buddy always wants some, but on the nights he won’t touch it, I get really sleepy afterward.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
Then she kicked the bowl across the patio before I could reach it.
The metal bowl slammed against the stone border and rolled under a lounge chair.
I stepped directly between Vanessa and Lily.
“Why’d you kick it away?”
“Because this is ridiculous.”
“No. Why did you need it away from me?”
Buddy continued barking.
Vanessa took one nervous step backward.
Then Lily whispered, “It happened with the pink milk too.”
I turned toward her.
“What pink milk?”
She looked genuinely confused by my question.
“The one Vanessa gives me before bed.”
I had never authorized any bedtime drink containing medicine.
Vanessa immediately said, “It’s just a sleep supplement.”
I stared at her.
“You never told me you were giving my daughter anything.”
“She has trouble sleeping.”
“That isn’t your decision.”
Then Lily said something that made Vanessa stop defending herself.
“It tastes bitter when she stirs it too long.”
For seven months, Lily had been having unexplained episodes of dizziness, heavy sleepiness and confusion.
Vanessa had blamed every one of them on grief.
May you like
And until that moment, I had believed her.
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