Chapter 2 - June Asked Me Not To Tell Her Mother
Helen reached the hallway less than a minute later.
She had heard the glass from the service pantry.
The second June saw her, she scrambled toward her mother.
“Mom!”
Helen dropped beside her.
“What happened?”
June wrapped both arms around her neck.
Celeste tried to answer.
I stopped her.
“Not you.”
My wife stared at me.
I had never spoken to her like that.
Helen looked between us, then saw the shattered mirror.
Her face changed.
“June?”
The little girl buried her face against her mother.
I told Helen exactly what I had witnessed.
No exaggeration.
No assumption.
“Celeste shoved her backward. June struck the mirror. She did not hit her head as far as I could see, but she needs to be checked.”
Helen went pale.
Celeste scoffed.
“She’s fine.”
I stood.
“Leave.”
Celeste blinked.
“This is my house.”
“Then go somewhere else in it.”
Her face hardened.
“You are choosing staff over your wife?”
I looked at June.
That sentence told me Celeste still did not understand the problem.
“She is not staff.”
“She is here because her mother works here.”
“She is seven.”
Celeste walked away furious.
I arranged for June to be medically examined that afternoon.
She was frightened and bruised around one shoulder from the impact, but physically safe.
No concussion.
No fracture.
No cuts.
The outcome was fortunate.
The action was not.
Later, while Helen packed their things to leave early, June caught my sleeve.
“Mr. Adrian?”
“Yes?”
Her eyes shifted toward her mother.
“Can you not tell Mom the other stuff?”
My stomach tightened.
“What other stuff?”
June looked terrified.
Then immediately regretted saying anything.
“Nothing.”
I crouched so I wasn’t towering over her.
“You’re not in trouble.”
She shook her head quickly.
“I know.”
“Did Celeste do something else?”
June’s eyes filled again.
“She’ll fire Mom.”
That sentence changed the entire afternoon.
“Why would you think that?”
“Mrs. Celeste said if I make trouble, Mom loses her job.”
I looked toward Helen.
She had not heard us.
“How long has she been saying that?”
June whispered:
“A while.”
That was when I understood the broken mirror was not the beginning.
It was the first thing I had personally witnessed.
May you like
There was a difference.
And I was suddenly terrified of how much had happened in that difference.
