His face tightened, but he kept his voice gentle.
“Hey, kiddo.”
Lizzy gave him a tired little nod.
He placed the coffee on the counter and stood beside me.
“Where are your parents?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know.”
“Have they called?”
“No.”
That absence told me almost as much as the closet had.
If Gloria and Walt had come home and found a broken door and a missing child, they should have been frantic.
They should have called me, the hospital, or anyone who might know where Lizzy was.
Instead, there was silence.
I knew how my parents handled accusations.
My mother cried first.
My father became offended.
Then they joined together and retold the story until the person confronting them sounded unstable, cruel, or ungrateful.
They would say I had misunderstood.
They would claim Lizzy had locked herself in.
They would point to the broken glass and say I was reckless.
