Chapter 7 — Daddy, Did You Hurt Mommy?

Rico rested his hands on the floor.

He did not reach beneath the table.

“Leo, I was angry after Mommy died.”

The boy pressed his bear over his ears.

“Daddy loud.”

“Yes. I was loud.”

Rain struck the windows behind us. Rico glanced toward them, then returned his attention to the small face watching him from the shadows.

“I shouted. I scared you.”

Leo’s eyes moved to me.

I stayed where I was.

“You can stay under there,” I told him. “Nobody’s going to pull you out.”

His grip on the bear loosened slightly.

Rico swallowed.

“But I did not hurt Mommy.”

Leo stared at him.

“I loved her,” Rico continued. “I still love her.”

A low roll of thunder passed over the house.

Leo flinched, but he did not scream this time.

“Car broke.”

“Yes,” Rico said.

“Red.”

His father’s face tightened.

I could almost see the courtyard as Leo must have seen it: adults rushing, a damaged car, something red where red should not have been.

Rico looked at me.

Neither of us knew how much the boy remembered or what he had pieced together afterward.

I shook my head slightly.

Don’t guess.

Rico turned back.

“You saw something frightening.”

Leo nodded.

“Mommy car.”

“Yes.”

“Daddy mad.”

“I was.”

The boy rubbed the bear’s ear between his fingers.

“Daddy bang?”

“No. I didn’t make that happen.”

Leo watched him with the stubborn concentration he usually reserved for fitting a block into the wrong space.

“Bad people hurt Mommy,” Rico said. “Daddy was angry because they hurt her. And because I missed her.”

Mrs. Alvarez stood near the counter, one hand against her mouth.

I looked down at my knees.

The room felt terribly small.

Leo crawled a few inches forward.

“You mad me?”

“No.”

Rico answered so quickly that the boy blinked.

“Not because you miss her. Not because you cry.”

“Broke plate.”

“That upset me at the restaurant. But I should not have shouted at you.”

Leo looked at me.

“Milk.”

“Yes,” I said. “I brought you milk.”

“Daddy loud.”

“He was.”

Rico’s eyes flicked toward me.

I did not soften it for him.

He nodded.

“I was loud, and you were already scared. I’m sorry.”

The boy pushed his bear ahead of him.

It stopped beside Rico’s hand.

His father looked at it, then at him.

“Can Bear sit here?”

Leo nodded.

Rico placed the bear upright beside his knee.

Another flash lit the curtains.

Leo drew back.

We waited through the thunder.

Nobody hurried him.

When it faded, he looked at his father again.

“You cry?”

Rico’s mouth parted.

For a moment, he seemed less prepared for that question than any of the others.

“Yes.”

Leo frowned.

“Daddy cry?”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

“Why?”

Rico lowered his eyes.

“Because I miss Mommy too.”

His voice broke on the last word.

I turned my face toward the window.

When I looked back, Leo had crawled to the edge of the table.

He reached out and touched Rico’s cheek.

“You sad.”

Rico nodded.

Leo studied the moisture beneath his father’s eye.

Then he climbed into his lap.

Rico closed his arms around him slowly, giving him time to change his mind.

The boy stayed.

Outside, the storm continued.

Inside, Leo rested his forehead beneath his father’s chin.

I remained on the floor until Rico looked at me over his son’s head.

He didn’t say thank you.

He held out his free hand.

I hesitated.

Then I put mine in it.

His fingers closed carefully around mine, and for several seconds, the three of us listened to the rain.

Dr. Feld came the following morning.

Rico had called her as soon as Leo settled.

I returned because he asked whether I would help describe what had happened. This time, his message included a second sentence.

Only if you’re available.

I was.

Leo was wary when she entered, but he brought his bear to the rug.

I sat at the kitchen table with Rico while Mrs. Alvarez stayed nearby.

We could see them through the open doorway.

Dr. Feld did not ask Leo to repeat everything from the storm.

She let him move the animals around.

At one point, he placed the largest figure outside the little house.

Then he moved it inside again.

Rico’s knee bounced beneath the table.

I touched his sleeve.

He stopped.

Afterward, Dr. Feld sat with us.

“What he said gives us something important to work with,” she told Rico. “But we shouldn’t assume we now know every part of his experience.”

“He thought I hurt her.”

“He may have connected your anger with the frightening things around him. Young children make sense of what they can see.”

Rico rubbed his face.

“I thought not talking about it would keep him from remembering.”

“It may have left him with questions he couldn’t ask.”

His eyes moved to the living room.

Leo was lining up his trucks.

“Then I have to answer.”

“Yes. Simply. Honestly. And more than once.”

Rico nodded.

There was no argument this time.

Dr. Feld asked Mrs. Alvarez what Leo had said during the weeks after Elena’s death.

She remembered him staring into the courtyard. Asking why Mommy’s car had come home without Mommy. Crying when men gathered in the study.

None of it had sounded like a complete story then.

Now the details sat between us, painful and connected.

Rico listened to every one.

He did not interrupt her.

When she apologized again, he shook his head.

“We all thought we were helping.”

His voice was exhausted.

“I need us to do it differently now.”

That afternoon, Leo asked for the photograph of Elena at the beach.

Rico took it down from the shelf.

The boy sat beside him on the sofa.

“Mommy wet.”

“She went swimming.”

“Daddy wet?”

“Eventually.”

“Why?”

Rico glanced at me.

“Your mother pushed me in.”

Leo’s eyes widened.

I bit back a smile.

“Did she?”

“She claimed I slipped.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

Leo laughed.

It was a small sound, but Rico’s hand tightened around the frame.

I watched him notice his own reaction and release it.

“She laughed,” Leo said, touching Elena’s face.

“She did.”

“Mommy funny.”

“Very.”

I left them on the sofa and went to wash the cups from lunch.

A few minutes later, Rico joined me.

“He asked to keep the photograph in his room.”

“Did you let him?”

“Yes.”

He leaned beside the sink.

“I used to put them away if he cried.”

I rinsed a cup.

“You can leave it there now.”

“I know.”

His hand rested on the counter near mine.

I remembered holding it during the storm.

Apparently, so did he.

His gaze moved to my fingers, then back to my face.

“Clara.”

I turned off the water.

Before he continued, Leo called from the other room.

“Daddy! Bear beach!”

Rico closed his eyes briefly.

I laughed.

“You’ve been summoned.”

“So I have.”

He went.

I stood at the sink longer than necessary.

That evening, Rico walked me to the front steps.

The rain had stopped, leaving the street dark and shiny.

Dante stood beside the gate, speaking to one of the guards. He moved away when he saw us.

Rico noticed me notice.

“He’s giving us a minute.”

“I didn’t ask him to.”

“Neither did I.”

We stood beneath the light beside the door.

Rico had changed out of his work shirt. His sleeves were pushed to his elbows, and there was a faint smear of blue crayon near one wrist.

Leo had wanted a picture of Bear swimming.

I had watched Rico draw an animal that looked alarmingly like a wet potato.

“He thought I was dangerous,” Rico said.

I looked up.

“To him.”

“I think he was frightened by things he couldn’t understand.”

“I gave him plenty to be frightened of.”

I did not contradict him.

Rico watched a car pass.

“The shouting. The men. What he heard through doors.”

His mouth tightened.

“I can’t just lower my voice and call that fixed.”

“No.”

He looked at me.

I expected irritation.

Instead, he nodded.

“There are things I need to change.”

“Then change them.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“I don’t think it’s easy.”

The air between us shifted.

I held his gaze.

“But you know what you’re choosing between now.”

Inside, Leo tapped against the window.

We both turned.

He held up the beach photograph.

Rico raised his hand.

Leo raised his own.

Then he disappeared from the glass.

Rico watched the empty window for another moment.

When he looked back at me, something in his expression had settled.

“I’m going to start with what comes through those doors.”