Page 28 of We Are All Guilty Here

“I can help,” Hannah said. “Oh, shit—the mattress. You’re always saying to check the—”

“Hannah.” Emmy caught her wrists. “Let me do this, okay?”

Hannah’s eyes flooded with tears again, but she nodded, backing up to stand in the doorway. She watched as Emmy put on a fresh pair of gloves, lifted the mattress and found nothing. Hannah started wringing her hands when Emmy checked the drawers top and bottom, ran her hand along the closet shelf, moved around the shoes, rummaged through pockets and checked clothes.

There was no attic access in the closet. No lockbox. No Ziploc bags. No secret stash.

Hannah asked, “What did she say to you the second time?”

Emmy looked up from searching Madison’s backpack. “What?”

“Louis Singh told me that he saw you with Madison in front of the bleachers.”

Emmy slowly let the backpack drop to the bed. Her face felt like it was on fire. “We didn’t talk.”

Hannah looked puzzled. “But Louis told me you said something to her, and Madison followed you behind the bleachers.”

Emmy’s hand went to her stomach. She hadn’t known that Madison had followed her.

“Em?” Hannah’s head tilted to the side in confusion. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’m not—” Emmy took a quick breath. “I didn’t know she followed me. I went to the bathroom.”

“But what did she say?”

“She didn’t—” Emmy kept her lips parted, but couldn’t catch her breath. “We didn’t talk.”

“But Louis said you spoke to her.” Hannah’s hands went to her hips. Emmy had joked that this was her teacher stance, the one she used when a kid was bullshitting her at school. “Are you saying Louis was lying?”

“No, I—” Emmy forced air into her lungs. “Hannah, I didn’t …”

Hannah waited, but when Emmy couldn’t find the words, she asked, “You didn’t what?”

She lost her nerve. “Ruth Baker told Dad that she talked to you about Madison. She thought that she was a bad influence on Cheyenne.”

Hannah’s laugh was so loud that it sounded like a bark. “Are you kidding me? That bitch made one passing comment in the hall about how maybe Madison was the problem. I told you about it when it happened. It was parents’ night right before Christmas break. Don’t you remember?”

Emmy remembered now.

“Why?” Hannah asked. “Is Ruth trying to blame Madison for this? What could it possibly matter?”

“Hannah—” Emmy pressed her fingers to her eyelids. She couldn’t keep putting this off. It was too cruel. She made herself look Hannah in the eye. “Madison was waiting for me when I came up the hill. I knew that she wanted to talk, but I told her not now.”

Hannah’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“I was—I went to the bathroom. I didn’t know she’d followed me around the side of the bleachers. I needed a moment to-to collect myself.”

“Collect yourself from what?” Something flashed in Hannah’s eyes. She huffed out air between her lips. “Jonah.”

“He was—” Emmy couldn’t even remember what the argument had been about. “We had a fight in front of everybody. I just needed a minute.”

“You needed a minute.”

“Han, you know how it is.” Emmy tried to make light of something that wasn’t light at all. “We complain about our husbands all the time.”

“I complain about Paul’s shoes not matching his belt. You complain about Jonah being so stoned that he forgot to pick up Cole from school.” Hannah’s tone had turned frigid. “It’s not the same thing.”

Words temporarily eluded Emmy. In the silence, she felt the shallow rise and fall of her chest. She had never seen Hannah like this before. There was an aura around her, a shimmering kind of anguish and rage.

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