Chapter 1 - The perfume bottle
My name is Anna Hartmann.
I was thirty-two years old when my older sister sprayed perfume directly into my five-year-old son’s face and my parents treated it like a joke.
It happened on a Saturday afternoon in my parents’ living room outside Columbus, Ohio.
Bright day.
Windows open.
Television low.
Nothing about the room suggested that twenty minutes later I would be sitting in an emergency department holding Eli’s hand while a nurse flushed his eyes.
My parents had lived in the same brick house for twenty-seven years.
Diane Hartmann, my mother, was sixty-three.
Peter was sixty-six.
My sister Lena was thirty-five.
She had moved back into the house temporarily after ending a long relationship and selling the condo she had owned with her ex.
“Temporarily” had already become nine months.
I did not care.
The house was theirs.
But Lena’s return had resurrected the family structure we had grown up with.
Lena provoked.
Mom explained.
Dad minimized.
I became difficult for objecting.
Eli became the newest person expected to adapt.
He wore a blue plaid shirt and jeans that afternoon.
He had spent an hour in the backyard with my father looking for worms beneath flowerpots.
By three o’clock, he was tired.
Hungry.
And irritated by Lena’s perfume.
That sounds insignificant.
It was not new.
Lena loved fragrance.
Expensive bottles.
Strong ones.
She wore enough that I could usually tell whether she had visited my parents before anyone told me.
Eli disliked it.
Not because he had a dramatic allergy.
Not because he carried an epinephrine pen.
Strong smells simply bothered him.
They made his eyes water and sometimes gave him a headache.
His pediatrician had once described him as:
“Sensitive to strong scents.”
That was all.
Lena interpreted sensitivity as character.
“He complains about everything.”
“He is five.”
“You use that excuse for everything.”
“It’s not an excuse. It is his age.”
That afternoon she had opened a new perfume bottle in the living room.
Heavy rectangular glass.
Silver cap.
She sprayed it onto her wrist.
Eli wrinkled his nose.
“Too strong.”
Lena smiled.
“Then move.”
He moved to the other end of the couch.
Ten minutes later, she sprayed again.
He covered his nose.
“Please stop.”
My mother laughed.
“You’re very dramatic today.”
I was in the kitchen getting him water.
I called:
“Lena, leave him alone.”
“I’m putting on perfume.”
“You’re doing it next to him because he asked you not to.”
Peter said:
“Oh, for God’s sake. Nobody’s dying.”
I returned to the living room.
Eli came toward me.
“Mom, can we go?”
“Yes.”
That should have ended it.
I picked up my keys from the side table.
Lena said:
“Seriously?”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“You leave every time he whines.”
“He asked me to go home.”
“He needs to learn the world doesn’t rearrange itself because he makes a face.”
“I’m not asking the world. I’m taking my kid out of a room.”
Diane sighed.
“Anna, don’t make this into something.”
There was our family phrase.
Don’t make this into something.
Something could be happening directly in front of us and somehow the person naming it was the one creating it.
Eli stood beside me.
Lena looked at him.
“You know what happens when you complain about everything?”
I said:
“Enough.”
She removed the perfume cap again.
Eli stepped backward.
“Stop.”
I started toward him.
Lena raised the bottle.
One aggressive spray.
Directly toward his face.
Mist crossed the space between them.
Eli screamed.
Both hands flew to his eyes.
I spun.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
Lena still held the open bottle.
Something in me snapped.
I stepped forward and slapped her.
Hard.
Her head turned.
She grabbed the cheek I had struck.
“He kept whining.”
I could barely process the sentence.
Behind her, Diane laughed once from the sofa.
“It’s fine; the kids are just playing around.”
“Playing?”
Peter stood near the fireplace with one hand in his pocket.
“He deserved it.”
I dropped beside Eli.
His eyes were squeezed shut.
Tears running.
His face wet with perfume.
“Mom!”
“I’m here.”
I pulled him against me.
Then looked at my father.
“He’s only FIVE years old, you asshole!”
Peter’s expression changed because I had sworn at him.
That, apparently, was still capable of shocking him.
Then a male voice came from behind us.
Calm.
Firm.
“I don’t think so, based on what I just witnessed.”
Every person in the room turned.
Detective Owen Marlowe stood at the open front doorway.
Dark police uniform.
Badge.
Forty-two.
One hand near the radio clipped to his shoulder.
A department body camera mounted high on his chest.
A small red indicator light glowed.
Lena’s smug expression vanished.
Diane pushed herself off the sofa.
Peter stared.
May you like
Marlowe touched the body camera while looking directly at them.
“It’s all been recorded.”
