Chapter 12 - The Words Before the Blow
June sat beside Ortiz with both hands around a paper cup.
"Mallory said, 'If you give that cross to the little girl, you take everything that's mine.' Then Grant said, 'Get it now. We don't have another chance.'"
I felt my stomach turn. "He said that while Emma was standing there?"
"Yes. Claire told them to lower their voices. She said the child was frightened."
Ortiz played the footage for me after warning me what it contained. I wanted to refuse. I needed to know.
On the small screen, Claire held Emma on her hip. Mallory advanced, pointing at the cross. Claire pressed something into Emma's mitten and shifted our daughter against her shoulder, putting her own body between Emma and Mallory.
Grant took one step forward. Mallory lifted the heavy flowerpot from its stand.
Claire turned to shield Emma.
The clay struck her head. Her knees folded. Emma stumbled clear as Claire fell, untouched except for soil on her coat.
I stopped the video before I saw myself enter the frame.
"Play the rest," I said after a moment.
Ortiz did. I watched myself swing the second planter. Mallory fell. I watched Emma flinch away from me. The camera recorded that too.
"I did that," I said quietly.
"You did," Ortiz replied. "And the recording also shows who started the violence. One fact doesn't erase the other."
We gave June a ride home. She thanked me for not asking her to change her statement to make me look better.
Back at the hospital, Emma was drawing three figures beneath a crooked sun. One figure lay on the ground. The smallest stood beside it.
"Is that the cemetery?" I asked.
Emma nodded. Then she drew another figure, farther away, holding a black rectangle.
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"Who's that?"
"The man with the phone," she whispered. "He smiled when Aunt Mallory picked up the pot."
