The technician brought out a camera. "I need you to hold out your arms, Mia. Palms up first, then palms down."
Mia's breath hitched. She gave me an anxious, pleading glance. I nodded, my throat too tight to speak. My hand strayed to Marcus' titanium wedding ring, which I wore on a silver chain beneath my sweatshirt. As if that could hold me together.
I watched as my daughter extended her arms. The scratches appeared worse under the den's bright overhead lights, more red, angrier.
The camera clicked. Once. Twice. Three times.
Each flash was like an accusation.
"Palms down now," King said gently.
Mia turned her hands over. More clicks. More flashes. I wanted to pull her away, to cover her arms and make this all go away, but I stood rigid, forced to watch as they documented every mark on my daughter's skin.
As if she were already guilty of something terrible.
And there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Chapter Four
Istood in the doorway of Mia's bedroom. "Mia?"
No answer.
The soft glow of her bedside lamp cast a warm circle of light. She lay curled on her side, her back to me, the sage comforter pulled up to her shoulders. Her chocolate-brown hair fanned out across the pillow.
It was Saturday evening. Mia had been in bed for hours. She hadn't eaten, had barely spoken. I'd checked on her several times throughout the day, but she barely acknowledged me, exhausted from the shock and grief of that morning's tragedy.
Our dog pressed into my side, panting as I petted his black-furred head absently. Apollo was our three-year-old German Shepherd, a lovable 90-pound beast who greeted strangers with delighted enthusiasm but relentlessly protected us from birds, squirrels, and the mailman with the ferocity of a tiger. His guard dog abilities had been grossly oversold.
I stepped inside Mia's room with Apollo following at my heels. The floorboards creaked beneath my weight as I lowered myself onto the edge of her bed and gently brushed a strand of hair from her face.
Her skin felt cool to the touch. Her expression was slack, as if she were asleep, but I knew better. The tension in her jaw and the slightfurrow between her brow were signs of the turmoil beneath the façade. She was awake.
"Mia?"
She didn't acknowledge me. She just lay there, curled on her side, facing the wall.
"I'm so sorry about Leah, sweetheart. I know how much she meant to you."
The heavy silence stretched between us. Just when I thought she might not respond at all, her voice emerged, muffled and distant. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Honey, I know you're hurting. This is awful. Losing Leah is devastating."
Nothing. Not even a flicker.
"I'm here if you need me. For anything."
I reached out, my hand hovering over her shoulder, then pulled back. I was useless, impotent, unable to offer comfort or ease her grief, when that's all I wanted to do for her.
I glanced around the room, at the dirty clothes spilling out of the hamper, piles of books and homework on the desk, the collection of smooth stones and beach glass lining her windowsill: fossilized Petoskey stones—Michigan's state stone—the banded red-and-white Agates, reddish-orange Jasper, smoky quartz pebbles, and the deep, dusky blue of Leland Blue slag glass.
A gallery of photographs she'd taken over the past year hung on the wall above her desk: black and white shots of Lake Michigan at dawn, a close-up of weathered driftwood, and the St. Joseph lighthouse at Tiscornia Beach silhouetted against storm clouds.
And my favorite, a candid photo of Leah laughing on the beach, her black chin-length hair whipping across her round cheeks, pure joy captured in that single fixed moment in time.
Mia had a gifted eye for composition, for finding beauty in unexpected places. She loved her Nikon camera, the yellow strap festooned with pins from our National Park visits to Zion, Arches, Isle Royale, and Yosemite a constant around her neck or slung over her shoulder.
It had been a gift from Marcus for her twelfth birthday, a week before he died. An accountant by trade, he'd loved nature, hiking, and especially photography, and had passed on his passion to our daughter.
