Chapter 8: Thirty Days

Maisie arrived with one suitcase, Captain, and the flower box wrapped in a towel. She carried the box into the bedroom herself.

Grant had bought sheets but left the walls bare. On the dresser he placed two small paint sample cards, green and yellow, with a note saying they could look at more colors if she wished. Maisie ignored the cards and opened the closet.

"Where do I put the suitcase?"

"Wherever you like."

She chose the space beside the bed, with the handle facing out.

At dinner she ate half a grilled cheese sandwich, then asked if she could have the other half later. Grant put it in a container with her name on the lid. In the morning it was gone. So were two apples from the fruit bowl.

He found the apples beneath a folded sweatshirt in her closet while looking for a missing towel. He backed out without touching them. At breakfast he placed a basket on the counter with fruit, crackers, and granola bars.

"You can take food whenever you're hungry," he said.

"I know."

"All right."

She took a cracker after he left the kitchen. He heard the wrapper from the hall and kept walking.

The first school morning was harder. Maisie could not find her math folder. Grant checked the car, then the kitchen table. She accused him of moving it, then said she didn't need it. When he found it beneath Captain, she apologized six times.

"You can be angry about losing something," he told her in the driveway. "I get angry too."

"You got quiet."

"I was trying to remember where I'd seen it. I should've said that."

"Quiet means you're making a decision."

Grant opened the passenger door. "Sometimes it means I'm thinking. If you're unsure, ask me. I'll try to say what I'm doing."

She held the folder against her chest all the way to school.

The school counselor called during the first week. Maisie had asked to use the restroom three times in one lesson, then stayed near the exit when the class returned. Grant met with the counselor after school. Together they agreed Maisie could keep a written copy of the pickup plan in her backpack, including Iris's name and number. Maisie chose the paper herself and crossed out the phrase "emergency contact" because she said it sounded like something terrible had already happened.

"Backup person," she wrote instead.

Grant made the same change on the copy pinned near the kitchen door. On Friday Maisie asked if she could invite a classmate over to see Captain. Grant said they could arrange a short visit if the classmate's family agreed. Maisie immediately said it didn't matter. He left the offer open. On Saturday she gave him the classmate's phone number written on a torn piece of notebook paper.

By the second week they had a routine that belonged to neither of them before Maisie arrived. She chose music for the drive. Grant learned that she hated raisins in cookies as much as Anna had. On Wednesday evenings, she got to decide dinner, even when her decision was breakfast cereal and scrambled eggs.

Then Grant missed pickup.

A delivery truck broke down during a storm, and a driver called from the roadside. Grant stopped to coordinate a tow. He had set a reminder but silenced it without looking. At three forty, the school called Iris, whose number he'd listed as the backup contact. Iris picked Maisie up and took her to Grant's office. She was safe. She was furious.

Grant arrived twenty minutes later. Maisie sat at Iris's desk with her coat on and Captain in her lap.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I made a mistake. Iris followed the backup plan, but I was supposed to be there."

"You said you would."

"I did."

"Then you didn't."

Grant resisted explaining the truck. The breakdown mattered to his employees. It would sound to Maisie like a list of reasons she had come second.

"You're right," he said. "I've changed tomorrow's pickup alert so Iris gets it too. That won't fix today."

"Maybe next time she'll just come get me first."

"You can ask her. You can also ask Ms. Alvarez to check the plan."

Maisie walked past him to the car. At home she shut herself in her room. Grant left dinner outside and sent Ms. Alvarez a factual message about what had happened. He did not ask Maisie to forgive him before bedtime.

At eleven, he heard her moving. In the morning the suitcase stood behind her bedroom door, fully packed. The flower box was on top.

"Are you going somewhere?" he asked.

"Just ready."

"The review isn't until next week. I haven't been told you're moving."

"You were late yesterday."

"I was. You're allowed to be angry. Being angry doesn't make you leave."

She bent to tighten a buckle that was already closed. "That's what you say."

"Yes. You don't have to believe it today."

The next morning Grant apologized to Iris too. She had left a meeting to collect Maisie, then stayed at the office longer than planned. "You should have called when the truck broke down," she told him. "The backup plan works when you use it before a child is stranded." Grant agreed and changed the procedure with her. It was a practical correction, not a speech he could ask Maisie to accept as proof.

Maisie asked Iris whether she'd been angry about leaving work. Iris answered that she had been annoyed with Grant, not with Maisie. Maisie seemed startled that an adult could make that distinction aloud.

At school pickup he arrived ten minutes early. The next day he did the same. Maisie kept the suitcase packed, and Grant kept showing up.

Two days before the review, Diane's attorney submitted a recent statement asserting that Maisie had become secretive and had taken property that did not belong to her. The statement referred to something missing from Anna's recovered box. Grant learned of it from Tessa, not from Maisie.

"What property?" he asked.

"A small envelope. Diane says an index of the box listed it and the secured carton didn't contain it. She implies Maisie removed it before the carton was inventoried."

"Diane had that box for years."

"Exactly. We need to establish what was in it and when. Don't question Maisie about an accusation in a legal filing. I'll speak with the advocate."

That night Grant went to tell Maisie dinner was ready. Her door was ajar. The flower box lay open on the bed, and she was pushing a folded envelope under Captain's torn ear.

She saw him in the doorway. Her face went pale.

"I didn't steal it," she said.

Grant stopped outside the room. "I haven't said you did."

Maisie clutched the rabbit. "If I give it to them, you'll send me back."