Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE HOMESusan Hayes entered the kitchen wearing a cream cardigan, gray slacks, and the same pleasant smile she used at church fundraisers.
“Lily, what were you thinking?”
My voice cracked across the kitchen hard enough to make her flinch.
Lily stood beside the breakfast table in her pink pajamas, her small shoulders pulled up toward her ears. Tears filled her dark brown eyes, but she refused to look at me.
On the floor between us lay the broken glass she had knocked from my father’s trembling hand.
Milk spread across the polished oak in a widening white puddle.
My seventy-two-year-old father, Robert Hayes, sat frozen in his chair.
“Emily,” he said weakly, “she’s five.”
“That doesn’t mean she gets to slap things out of people’s hands!”
“I didn’t slap it!” Lily screamed.
“You pushed Grandpa!”
“No!”
Her little face turned red.
“I saved him!”
The words made me angrier.
My father had moved into our house three months earlier after suffering what doctors called a series of unexplained neurological episodes. He had once been six feet tall, broad-shouldered, impossible to slow down. Now his hands shook when he buttoned his shirt. Sometimes he forgot words. Twice in the previous month, his legs had simply buckled.
And Lily had become strangely hostile toward him at breakfast.
Only breakfast.
She had hidden his spoon.
Poured orange juice into his coffee.
Thrown his vitamins into the trash.
And now this.
“Go upstairs,” I said.
“No!”
“Lily.”
“Grandpa can’t drink it!”
My husband, Daniel, appeared in the kitchen doorway, already wearing his suit for work.
“What happened?”
“Your daughter just knocked Dad’s milk onto the floor.”
Lily spun toward him.
“It smells wrong!”
Daniel sighed.
“Sweetheart—”
“It does!”
She pointed toward the puddle.
“Listen!”
I almost ordered her upstairs again.
Then I heard it.
A faint sound.
Sssssssss.
I stopped breathing.
Daniel frowned.
“What is that?”
We all looked down.
Tiny bubbles were forming where the milk had reached the metal threshold strip beneath the pantry door.
Sssssss.
My anger disappeared instantly.
I crouched.
A strange, sharp odor reached me.
Not sour milk.
Not cleaning spray.
Something bitter.
Chemical.
My father leaned forward.
“What’s wrong?”
“Dad, don’t touch anything.”
His face changed.
“Emily?”
I grabbed a stack of paper towels, then stopped before putting my hand near the liquid.
Lily whispered behind me.
“That’s why I knocked it down.”
I slowly turned.
Her cheeks were wet.
“How did you know?”
She looked terrified now.
“Because Grandpa’s milk always smells like the garage.”
Daniel and I exchanged a look.
“What do you mean always?” I asked.
Lily sniffed.
“Every morning.”
My stomach dropped.
Dad drank warm milk every morning.
He had for years.
But during the last three months, my stepmother, Susan, had insisted on preparing it for him.
Susan was away that morning.
At least, I thought she was.
Dad had told me she had gone to visit her sister outside Atlanta.
I looked at the glass fragments.
Then at my father’s shaking hands.
Three months of unexplained weakness.
Three months of confusion.
Three months of specialists telling us his body might simply be failing.
And every morning, one glass of milk.
“Daniel,” I whispered.
He was already taking out his phone.
“I’m calling 911.”
Dad pushed back from the table.
“No. That’s ridiculous.”
Then his right hand suddenly clenched.
The color drained from his face.
“Dad?”
He tried to stand.
His knees folded.
Daniel caught him before his head struck the table.
“Robert!”
My father’s entire body began trembling.
Lily screamed.
I dropped beside him.
“Dad! Look at me!”
His eyes struggled to focus.
Then, with terrifying effort, he grabbed my wrist.
“Susan…”
“What?”
His lips barely moved.
“She came back…”
My heart stopped.
“When?”
His eyes shifted toward the hallway.
“Last night.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Nobody moved.
Daniel looked at me.
Lily buried herself against my side.
Another creak.
Slow.
Deliberate.
From the second floor.
But my stepmother was supposed to be two hundred miles away.
Then we heard a bedroom door close.
Daniel whispered, “Get Lily out.”
Before I could move, footsteps began descending the stairs.
And Susan’s voice drifted toward us.
Calm.
May you like
Almost cheerful.
“Good morning, everyone.”
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