“In the drawer where you keep the batteries.”
I walked to the kitchen.
The drawer was exactly where she said it would be.
I pulled it open.
There was no phone.
For a second, I thought my daughter had been mistaken.
Then I saw something underneath the batteries.
A small folded piece of paper.
I picked it up.
It was not a note from my daughter.
It was a list.
My daughter’s name was written at the top.
Below it were several dates.
Beside each date were short entries about when I had left the house, when my daughter had been alone with her stepmother, and what my daughter had supposedly done during those periods.
I read the first few lines twice.
Some of them were things my daughter had told me had never happened.
The woman appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“Put that down.”
I turned.
“Why?”
She did not answer.
