Chapter 5 - LINDALinda Lawson was sixty-four.
Retired elementary-school librarian.
Widowed.
Church volunteer.
Woman who made homemade cinnamon rolls every Christmas and kept spare gloves in her car because “children lose everything attached to their bodies.”
She did not look like someone who would secretly medicate a child.
That thought taught me something ugly about my own assumptions.
Danger does not have a dress code.
Linda had watched Emma since she was two.
At first occasionally.
Then twice a week after school once I returned full-time after Noah’s birth.
She helped with homework.
Cooked.
Drove them to piano.
Remembered school spirit days better than I did.
She also believed children needed to be “settled.”
That word.
I had heard it for years.
When Emma was three and ran through the house:
“She needs to settle.”
When Noah cried at restaurants:
“He needs to settle.”
When Emma became anxious before fifth grade:
“You encourage all this nervous energy.”
I argued.
Michael translated.
“She means structure.”
Maybe.
At Christmas Linda gave Emma a lavender sleep spray.
I joked:
“Is this for her or for us?”
Linda said:
“Children sleep better when adults stop treating bedtime like a negotiation.”
That had annoyed me.
May you like
Not frightened me.
Now police were going to her house.
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