Chapter 8: Nine O'Clock
I didn't sleep.
Nora did.
I carried her to the car and she stayed asleep through the drive home, through me lifting her out of the backseat, through me laying her down in her bed still in her flower girl dress because I couldn't bear to wake her.
I sat on the edge of her mattress in the dark and listened to her breathe.
The cut above her ear was clean and dressed.
Ruth had written down the name of a walk-in clinic that opened at eight.
I had the paper in my pocket.
At some point I went downstairs and made tea I didn't drink.
I sat at the kitchen table with my phone and opened my email and found the folder I hadn't opened in four years.
Forty-one emails.
Gareth's name in the sender field, over and over.
*Sign this.
Don't read the whole thing, it's just standard language.
Dad already knows.
This needs to happen before the end of the week.*
I read them all.
Then I forwarded the entire folder to my own secondary address, then to a cloud account, then to a USB drive I found in the kitchen drawer.
Three copies.
I didn't know if that was enough.
I made a fourth.
At 7:15 I woke Nora gently.
She opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling and said, "Are we still at the hotel?"
"No, baby.
We're home."
She touched the dressing on her head.
"It doesn't hurt as much."
"Good.
We're going to see a doctor this morning, just to check."
She sat up.
"Is Uncle Gareth in trouble?"
I looked at her.
"Yes."
She thought about that.
"Is Grandma angry at us?"
"Probably."
"Is that okay?"
"Yes," I said.
"It's okay."
She seemed to accept that.
She asked if she could have toast and I said yes and we went downstairs together and I made toast and she ate it at the kitchen table in her flower girl dress, still wearing the white ribbon at her neck, the one that had been stained and that Ruth had replaced with a clean one from somewhere.
At eight we went to the clinic.
The doctor — young, unhurried, the kind of careful that inspires trust — examined the cut and said it was healing cleanly.
No concussion signs.
Come back if she developed a headache or her vision changed.
"What happened?" the doctor asked, not accusatorially, just as a matter of record.
"She was hjt with a solid object," I said.
"At a family event.
It's being reported to the police."
The doctor nodded and made a note.
"I'll document the injury.
That may be useful for you."
"Thank you."
At nine o'clock I sat across from Detective Reyes in a small room at the police station.
Nora was in the waiting area with a colouring book that the desk sergeant had produced from somewhere with the matter-of-fact kindness of someone who had seen this kind of morning before.
I handed over the emails on the USB drive.
Detective Reyes went through them methodically, making notes, asking occasional questions.
Halfway through, she paused.
"This one," she said, turning the screen toward me.
"He says — *Dad's already agreed in principle, we just need the paperwork to reflect it before he's back on his feet.* That's his phrasing?"
"Yes."
"And your father was still in hospital when you signed?"
"He was in the ICU."
She made a note.
"Ms.
Calloway, I want to be honest with you.
Tonight's incident — the assault on your daughter — that's the immediate matter.
But these emails suggest a pattern of behaviour that may be of interest to a separate investigation.
I'd like to share them with a colleague who handles financial matters.
With your permission."
"Yes," I said.
"You have it."
She looked up.
"This may take longer than tonight.
You understand that?"
"I do."
"And you're prepared for that?"
I thought about Nora in the waiting room with her colouring book.
I thought about thirty years of stepping back.
I thought about my mother walking out of that staff room without looking at her granddaughter.
"Yes," I said.
"I'm prepared."
The formal charge came eleven days later.
Gareth was charged with assault causing bodily harm to a minor.
His solicitor issued a statement saying the charge was "vigorously contested" and that the CCTV evidence was "subject to serious questions of interpretation." The statement was three paragraphs long and said nothing.
Connor gave a full witness statement.
He described what he saw in the corridor at 7:42 PM with the kind of precision that comes from someone who had been rehearsing it in his head since the moment it happened.
His statement corroborated the CCTV timestamp exactly.
My father called me two weeks after the wedding.
It was the first time he had called me in eight months.
"I've been told about the emails," he said.
He sounded older on the phone than he had in person.
Smaller.
"Dad—"
"I want to see them myself.
If that's all right."
"Of course it is."
A long pause.
"I owe you an apology, Marissa.
A significant one.
I'm not — I'm not sure I know how to give it yet.
But I wanted you to know I understand that."
I didn't say *it's fine* because it wasn't, entirely.
I said, "I'd like to talk.
When you're ready."
"Yes," he said.
May you like
"I'd like that too."
My mother did not call.
