The Accident

EIGHT

“Emily’s mom touched you?” I asked, bewildered. That seemed even more unthinkable.

“No, she didn’t touch me,” Kelly said. “She got mad at me.”

“Mad at you? Why would she get mad at you?”

“I was in their room.” Now she wouldn’t look at me.

“Their room? You mean, their bedroom?”

Kelly nodded. “We were just playing.”

“Playing in Emily’s parents’ bedroom?”

“I was only hiding. In the closet. I wasn’t doing anything bad. But she got all mad because she didn’t know I was there and she was on the phone.”

I was upset, but part of me was relieved, as well. The worst-case scenario appeared to be off the table. Kelly being where she wasn’t supposed to be, hiding in Ann and Darren Slocum’s bedroom-well, if I’d found Emily hanging out in my bedroom closet, I’d probably be pissed about it myself.

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” I said carefully. “You were hiding in Mr. and Mrs. Slocum’s bedroom and then Mrs. Slocum came in to use the phone?”

Kelly nodded. “She came in and sat on the bed right near the closet and phoned somebody and I was really scared she was going to see me because the door was open a little bit but I thought if I tried to close it, she’d see that, so I didn’t do anything.”

“Okay,” I said.

“So she was talking to one person and then she started talking to another person and-”

“She hung up and called someone else?”

“No, it was like another call came in while she was talking to the first person. And when she was talking to the second person, that’s when I guess she heard me breathing in the closet and she stopped talking and she opened the door and she got really mad and told me to come out.”

“You shouldn’t have gone into their room,” I said. “Especially their closet. It’s private in there.”

“So you’re mad, too.”

“No, I’m just saying. What did she say to you?”

“She asked me if I’d been listening.”

Before I knew it, we were all the way to Devon, so I hung a left on Naugatuck and started working our way back on Milford Point Road. “Mrs. Slocum probably wouldn’t have said what she was saying on the phone if she knew someone was in the room with her.”

“Yeah, that’s for sure,” Kelly muttered.

“What?” I asked. “What was she saying?”

She gave me a look. “You mean you want me to tell you? Even though I wasn’t supposed to hear? Doesn’t that mean you’re sort of listening in, too?”

I shook my head. “Okay, it’s none of my business what she said, just like it was none of yours. But I mean, generally, what was it about? Why was she so upset you heard her?”

“The first person or the second?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Because she wasn’t mad at the first person. She was mad at the second person.”

“The second caller? She was mad at that person?”

A nod.

“Do you know who it was?”

A head shake.

“So what was she saying?”

“I can’t talk about it,” Kelly said. “Mrs. Slocum said I wasn’t supposed to.”

I weighed that. Kelly had eavesdropped on a conversation she wasn’t supposed to hear. What Ann Slocum had to say on the phone wasn’t my business, either. But at the same time, I needed to get to the bottom of this. I needed to know whether Ann’s response was within reason, or if she’d crossed a line.

“Okay, let’s not worry about what exactly she said on the phone, but what did she say to you after?”

“She asked me how long I’d been hiding there, and then she asked me if I heard what she was saying on the phone and I said no, not really, which wasn’t exactly true, and then she said I shouldn’t have done that and she said I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what she was talking about.”

“Like me,” I said.

“Not, like, anybody. She said I wasn’t supposed to tell Emily and I wasn’t supposed to tell Mr. Slocum, either.”

That was interesting. It was one thing, Kelly overhearing something that was Slocum family business, that shouldn’t be discussed outside their home. But now it seemed what my daughter had heard was a little more specific than that. “Did she say why?”

Kelly fingered her backpack. “Nope. She just said not to tell. She said if I ever told anyone, she wouldn’t let me and Emily be friends anymore.” Her voice wobbled. “I don’t have very many friends and I don’t want Emily not to be my friend.”

“Of course you don’t,” I said, trying very hard to hide my anger at Ann Slocum’s insensitivity. Kelly had just lost her mother, for crying out loud. “What happened then?”

“She left.”

“The bedroom? She left the bedroom?” A nod. “Didn’t you both leave?” A shake. “Wait a minute. She got mad because you were hiding in her bedroom, and then you stayed there? Why would you do such a thing?”

“She made me. She told me to stay right there, because she had to think about what to do with me. She said it was like a time-out. And she took the talking part of the phone with her.”

I was feeling prickly all over. What the hell was the woman thinking?

“That’s when I called you,” Kelly said. “I’d put my phone back into my pocket just before she opened the door and she didn’t know I had it.”

“Why did you have your phone out?”

“When Emily opened the door to look for me I was going to shout ‘Surprise!’ and wanted to see her scream on video.”

I gave my head a small shake. “Okay, so when she left the room and told you to stay there, that’s when you called me.” She nodded. “That was smart. When she left the room, did she lock the door?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if it has a lock on it. But Mrs. Slocum told me not to move and I didn’t want to get in trouble so I stayed there. But she didn’t tell me I couldn’t phone you, so I did. But I thought she might get mad, so that’s why I was whispering. When you got there, Mr. Slocum started yelling for me and that’s when I came out.”

“Honey, what she did, that was wrong. You shouldn’t have been there, in her closet, but she shouldn’t have done that. I’m gonna have a word with her tomorrow.”

“Then she’ll know I told you, and Emily won’t be my friend anymore.”

“I’ll make sure she doesn’t do that.”

Kelly shook her head forcefully. “She might get mad.”

“Honey, Emily’s mom’s not going to hurt you or anything.”

“Maybe she’ll hurt you. ”

“What? What’s she going to do to me?”

“She might put a bullet in your brain,” Kelly said. “That’s what she said she was going to do to the person she was talking to.”