Chapter 1 - The Question No Child Should Ask
My sister left her five-year-old daughter in my kitchen, and twenty minutes later Ruby stared at a bowl of beef stew as though I had placed evidence in front of her.
“Uncle Robert?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
Her fingers tightened around the spoon.
“Am I allowed to eat today?”
For several seconds, I thought I had misunderstood her.
Ruby was tiny for five. Brown hair cut unevenly around her shoulders, knees tucked beneath an oversized sweatshirt, eyes that checked an adult’s face before every movement.
Paula had dropped her off less than an hour earlier.
Three days, she said.
She and Sergio needed “couple time.”
“Be good,” Paula told Ruby before leaving. “Don’t make your mother look bad.”
Ruby hadn’t hugged her goodbye.
I should have noticed.
She asked permission to sit on my couch.
Permission to use a red crayon.
Permission to go to the bathroom.
When she accidentally colored outside a line, she whispered:
“Am I in trouble?”
I had spent the afternoon telling myself she was shy.
Then came dinner.
“What do you mean, allowed to eat?”
Ruby looked toward my phone.
“I don’t know if it’s my turn.”
“My turn” turned out to mean something horrifyingly specific.
Some days she got meals.
Other days she got water.
Bread if she had “been good.”
“Who decides?”
Her eyes dropped.
“Mom.”
Then, quieter:
“And Sergio.”
I pushed the bowl toward her.
“You can always eat here.”
She began crying.
Not loudly.
She covered her mouth with both hands.
“I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”
“You don’t have to stop.”
“I was hungry.”
As though hunger itself were misconduct.
Ruby ate holding the spoon in both hands, fast enough that I finally slowed her down because I was afraid she would make herself sick.
Afterward she asked:
“Can I eat tomorrow too?”
Something in me broke cleanly.
At bedtime, she refused to let me shut the guest-room door.
“You won’t put the chair there?”
“What chair?”
Her face closed immediately.
I didn’t push.
After she fell asleep, I opened her backpack looking for pajamas.
One shirt.
Socks.
A toothbrush.
Coloring book.
No snacks.
No jacket.
Between two coloring pages was a folded note.
The handwriting belonged to an adult.
If Ruby is with Uncle Robert, do not return her to Paula or Sergio until you call me.
Elena Alvarez
Ruby’s teacher.
A phone number had been written twice.
Paper-clipped to a second page was a photograph.
Ruby’s bedroom door.
A wooden dining chair wedged beneath the knob from the hallway side.
I was still staring at it when my phone lit up.
May you like
Paula: Open the door. Sergio and I are outside.
Then my front handle turned.
