Page 4 of Little Last Words

“She is, but …” She squinted up at me like she was trying to think about what to say. “I like to lay with Mommy in the morning when I get up. She wasn’t in her bed today.”

“What’s your mommy’s name?”

“Grandma calls her Poppy, but that’s not her real name.”

“What is her real name?”

“Penelope.”

“What a beautiful name. Where does your grandma live?”

“By my new school.”

“What grade are you in?” I asked.

“I’ll be in first grade when school starts again.”

“Can you tell me what your grandma’s house looks like?”

“It’s a brown house with a big fountain in the front yard. It has dolphins in it, but they’re not real. Water squirts out of their mouths.”

“Your grandma lives here, in Cambria?”

“I think so.”

“When your mommy wasn’t in bed this morning, did you look for her?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Did you find her?”

She nodded. “Mommy is in the bathroom.”

I turned my attention back to the stain on the girl’s nightgown, a lump in my throat forming as I considered the possibilities of what I might discover inside the house. I didn’t like going to such a dark place in my mind, but the more she talked, the more I worried something troublesome may have occurred.

“What happened to your nightgown?” I asked.

She glanced at the stain and tried to flatten a hand over it. “I don’t know.”

Well,thatwasn’t the truth.

Had her mother decided to take an early morning shower, slipped in the bathtub, and injured herself in some way?

Had she fallen asleep in the tub, and her daughter was unable to rouse her?

Was she in the shower now and didn’t know her daughter had wandered outside?

Or was something far more sinister at play?

“What’s your mommy doing in the bathroom?” I asked.

Another shrug. “I don’t know.”

My anxiety was beginning to take the reins.

If something had happened to her mother, I needed to know.

“Honey, will you take me inside so I can talk to your mommy?” I asked.