Chapter 3 - FOOD AND WATER
Sophie weighed almost nothing when I lifted her.
I knew that was not literally true.
She was five.
She was growing.
She was healthy enough that her pediatrician had never expressed concern.
But in that attic, with her arms wrapped around my neck and her rabbit trapped between us, she felt frighteningly light.
Rosa grabbed her phone.
“I’m calling.”
“Call 911.”
I carried Sophie away from the wardrobe.
“Nobody touches that room.”
My voice sounded unfamiliar.
Flat.
Controlled.
The voice I used when anger had gone too far to be expressed safely.
Rosa gave the dispatcher the address.
I sat Sophie on an old trunk near the stairs.
“Did you drink your water?”
She nodded.
“When did Daddy put you here?”
She looked toward the wardrobe.
“After breakfast.”
“What day?”
Her eyebrows pinched.
Children did not measure confinement in dates.
“Did you sleep here?”
She nodded again.
My chest tightened.
“How many sleeps?”
Sophie held up two fingers.
Rosa turned away.
Her free hand covered her mouth.
I heard the dispatcher asking questions.
Was the child conscious?
Was she breathing normally?
Was there visible injury?
Did we know how long she had been exposed to the heat?
I answered what I could.
Sophie leaned against me.
“Grandpa?”
“Yes?”
“Can I have cold water?”
That nearly broke me.
“Absolutely.”
Rosa hurried downstairs.
My phone began ringing.
Dennis.
I stared at his name.
Some instinct told me not to answer.
Then I remembered the dispatcher was still connected through Rosa’s phone.
I wanted witnesses.
I accepted the call and put it on speaker.
“Dad.”
Dennis sounded annoyed rather than frightened.
“Why are you at my house?”
I looked at Sophie.
She recognized his voice immediately.
Her body stiffened.
“Why was Sophie locked in the attic?”
Silence.
Then a sigh.
Not shock.
Not confusion.
A sigh.
“She wasn’t locked in the attic.”
“I just opened the wardrobe.”
Another pause.
“Dad, listen to me.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“I know she was inside a bolted wardrobe.”
“She was having a behavioral episode.”
Sophie buried her face against my chest.
I felt her shaking.
I lowered my voice.
“How long?”
“She exaggerates.”
“How long, Dennis?”
“She had food and water, Dad. Stop acting like I buried her alive.”
Every remaining excuse I had ever made for my son vanished in that sentence.
Rosa returned with a glass of water and froze when she heard him.
Sophie drank too quickly.
I slowed her gently.
“Small sips.”
Dennis kept talking.
“You have always interfered.”
“I haven’t interfered enough.”
“She throws tantrums. She destroys things. She lies.”
Sophie stopped drinking.
I felt her body go rigid.
I looked at the open wardrobe.
The crackers.
The water bottle.
The mattress.
The crayons.
Those were not the supplies of an impulsive punishment.
They were arrangements.
“How many times have you put her in there?”
Dennis did not answer.
“Dennis.”
“You’re making this bigger than it is.”
Sirens sounded faintly in the distance.
Dennis heard them through the phone.
“What did you do?”
“I called for help.”
“You called the police?”
“I called 911.”
His voice changed.
For the first time, fear entered it.
“Dad, you need to listen very carefully. Do not let anyone go through my things.”
I looked toward the wardrobe.
“What things?”
“That attic has business documents in it.”
“Then you should have thought of that before using it as a bedroom.”
“It wasn’t a bedroom.”
Sophie whispered against my shirt.
“He calls it the quiet place.”
I closed my eyes.
Dennis heard her.
“Sophie.”
She pressed harder against me.
His tone softened instantly.
Too instantly.
“Sweetheart, Daddy just needs you to tell Grandpa you were being naughty.”
I took the phone off speaker long enough to say one sentence directly into it.
“Do not talk to her.”
Then I put it back down.
Rosa walked toward the wardrobe.
“Mr. Mercer.”
Something in her voice made me turn.
She was looking at the thin mattress.
One corner had folded upward when I pulled Sophie out.
Beneath it was something pale.
Paper.
I stepped toward it.
Dennis must have heard movement.
“What are you doing?”
I did not answer.
I kicked the mattress aside.
A folded document slid across the attic floor.
So did a small plastic hospital bracelet.
Rosa stared.
Dennis’s breathing changed through the phone.
I bent down.
“Dad.”
His voice was sharper now.
“Leave that alone.”
I picked up the bracelet first.
The plastic had yellowed.
A faded label carried Sophie’s name and birth date.
Then I opened the folded paper.
At the top was the name of a private laboratory.
Below it:
PATERNITY ANALYSIS.
Child: Sophie Claire Mercer.
Alleged Father: Dennis Paul Mercer.
I kept reading.
One sentence seemed to separate itself from everything around it.
Probability of paternity: 0.00%.
Dennis went silent.
Sophie reached toward the page.
She whispered something I could not hear.
“What did you say?”
She touched the paper.
“Daddy said Mommy was stupid for keeping it.”
I looked at the phone.
“Dennis.”
Nothing.
Rosa stepped closer.
Her eyes scanned the page.
She staggered backward.
From the speaker came my son’s voice.
Suddenly desperate.
“Dad, don’t read that.”
I looked down at Sophie.
Then back at the page.
“Dennis…”
My throat tightened.
“Why does this say you’re not her father?”
May you like
He said nothing.
And in that silence, Michael came back from the dead.
