Chapter 2 - SIX PERCENT
The emergency-room nurse cut through Emma’s sweatshirt while another nurse gave her pain medication.
I held her hand and counted each breath.
The pediatric burn specialist described the injuries carefully. Emma had partial-thickness burns across part of her left shoulder, upper arm, and side. The area covered approximately six percent of her body.
Six percent sounded small.
It did not look small when it belonged to a four-year-old.
“She will need specialized dressings,” the doctor said. “We’re admitting her overnight. Possibly longer, depending on pain control and how the wounds develop.”
“Will she scar?”
“There may be scarring. We won’t know the final extent today.”
Emma turned her face toward me.
“Aunt Vanessa was mad.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t sit in Lily’s chair.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
A detective named Kara Mendoza entered after the doctors completed the initial treatment. She asked me to step a few feet away while a child-life specialist remained with Emma.
The detective did not ask Emma detailed questions.
“She needs rest, and any formal interview must be handled properly,” Mendoza explained. “We do not want adults repeating questions until a child learns what answer they expect.”
I gave my statement in a consultation room.
Vanessa claimed the pot slipped when Emma bumped the table.
Diane claimed Emma had been running.
Howard said he looked down when his coffee spilled and did not see the moment of impact.
Lily had not yet been interviewed.
“What happened to the phone Vanessa pocketed?” I asked.
“Officers recovered a phone from her.”
“Was it recording?”
“It contains a video file beginning before lunch. The file ends three seconds before the pot moves.”
“She deleted it.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
The cream envelope had also been collected.
Detective Mendoza could not discuss its contents until investigators determined whether it related to the assault or was privileged financial material.
“It had my name on it.”
“We photographed it in place. We’ll preserve it while we establish who owns the document.”
My father waited beside Emma’s bed.
He had changed out of the jacket he wore when he arrived because soup had soaked one sleeve while he helped the paramedics.
“Diane called me,” he said.
“When?”
“Before you did.”
I stared at him.
“She called you before Vanessa threw the soup?”
“Eleven thirty-eight. Lunch started at noon, correct?”
“Yes.”
“She said you were coming to sign papers and that I needed to stop interfering in her property.”
“Why would she call you?”
“Because I told her last week that your grandmother’s deed could not be changed without your consent.”
I sat slowly.
My maternal grandmother, Margaret Walsh, had owned Diane’s house outright. When she died, she left Diane the right to live there for life. Ownership after that was divided equally between Vanessa and me.
Diane had always called the arrangement an insult.
She said Margaret trusted paperwork more than her own daughter.
“What papers?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
My phone vibrated.
A message from Diane appeared.
You have humiliated this family over an accident. Sign what you were supposed to sign, and Vanessa may agree not to press charges for your threats.
I showed my father.
“You threatened her?” he asked.
“I called her a monster.”
“That is not a crime.”
“She recorded me.”
“Maybe that was the purpose.”
Detective Mendoza returned carrying an evidence receipt.
“The phone recovered from Vanessa was recording lunch,” she said. “The camera was positioned toward your chair.”
“Why did the file stop?”
“We’re examining it.”
“And the envelope?”
“It contains a document consenting to a mortgage against the house.”
My name appeared as a co-owner.
The proposed loan was for 320,000 dollars.
“I never agreed to a mortgage.”
“There’s another problem,” Mendoza said. “The envelope contains a second copy.”
That copy already bore my signature.
It was dated two weeks earlier.
A notary had stamped it.
May you like
The lunch was not meant to obtain my first signature.
It was meant to force me to approve one they had already forged.
