Chapter 4 - I PRETENDED TO LEAVE
At 9:03, I called Pamela.
“Flight delayed.”
“Oh no.”
“Mechanical problem.”
“How’s Matilda?”
“Difficult.”
My jaw tightened.
“What happened?”
“She had another emotional episode.”
“What kind?”
“Pacing. Complaining her heart felt funny.”
“Should we call the doctor?”
“No.”
Too fast.
“It’s anxiety.”
“Did she eat?”
“A little.”
“Drink her juice?”
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
Lincoln wrote something on a pad.
“What are you doing today?”
“Taking her to school late.”
“Why?”
“She needed time to calm down.”
Then Pamela said:
“She says strange things when you travel.”
There it was.
Preemptive discrediting.
I ended the call without accusing her.
At 9:31, Lincoln and I entered my house.
The kitchen was empty.
The juice glass sat in the sink.
He photographed it.
The cabinet contained vitamins, tea and medication.
No small bottle.
“Gone,” I whispered.
“Maybe.”
Footsteps sounded upstairs.
Pamela appeared.
She froze.
“Greg?”
“Meeting postponed.”
Her eyes moved to Lincoln.
“Why is he here?”
“Security-system issue.”
“Where’s Matilda?”
“At school.”
“You said late.”
“She settled down.”
I watched her.
Calm.
Controlled.
“I’m going to pick her up.”
“Why?”
“I want her to spend the afternoon with Henrietta.”
Beatrice’s mother.
Pamela’s smile tightened.
“She has school.”
“She’s six.”
“Routine matters.”
“So does her grandmother.”
Pamela stared at me.
“I think you’re overreacting to this morning.”
My skin went cold.
“What did she tell you?”
Silence.
A tiny flash in Pamela’s eyes.
I had never said Matilda told me anything.
Pamela recovered.
“I meant her clinginess.”
“Right.”
“She makes things up sometimes.”
Lincoln looked at his phone.
Recording.
I smiled.
“Good to know.”
Then Pamela said something she had used against me for months.
“You get emotional whenever Beatrice’s family is involved.”
There it was.
Grief as leverage.
Whenever I disagreed about Matilda, Pamela suggested I was clinging to my dead wife.
And I had begun wondering whether she was right.
“Maybe,” I said.
“But I’m still taking her.”
Pamela’s jaw tightened.
“Fine.”
I left.
Lincoln stayed with my permission to inspect the security system.
He needed forty-two minutes.
I needed only ten to learn something worse.
When Matilda’s teacher saw me outside school, she asked:
May you like
“Mr. Lane, can we talk about this morning?”
And suddenly, Pamela’s story about the school agreeing Matilda was unstable began falling apart too.
