The Wife Stalker(32)
“How about lunch first?”
He shook his head. “Later. You promised us ice cream, remember?”
“Okay, let’s walk over to Joey’s.”
“Can’t you go? Let Evie and me finish our sandcastle.”
I looked behind me to Joey’s, a hundred feet or so away. “I don’t know, honey.”
“Please! Someone might wreck it if we leave,” he pleaded.
I stood. “You have to promise not to go in the water.” I looked at Evie. “Promise you won’t let him out of your sight?”
She nodded.
Grabbing my purse from the beach chair, I hurried inside and ordered them each a cone. Vanilla for Evie, chocolate for Stelli. I turned around every few seconds, craning my neck to see out the door and check on them. They were fine. As the boy behind the counter handed the cones to me, one of them fell. He turned back around to make another. When I looked again, I saw only Evie sitting on the sand. My heart jumped into my throat. Where was Stelli? Frantic, I stood on tiptoes, looking all around her, but still there was no sight of him.
I ran from the stand back to the beach.
“Where’s Stelli?”
Evie was deep in concentration rounding out the edge of the castle and looked up, distracted. “What?”
“Stelli? He’s not here!”
I ran up to the lifeguard stand in a panic. “Have you seen my little boy? Around this high?” I held my hand up. “He was right here, but now I can’t find him.”
He put his binoculars up to his eyes and scanned the water.
It must have been less than a minute, but it felt like hours before I saw Stelli playing with another little boy farther down the beach.
I ran to him. “Stelli, you scared me! I thought you were lost.”
He looked up. “I just wanted to play with the dump truck.”
I took his hand. “Come on, let’s go back to your sister.”
The three of us went to Joey’s together for new ice cream, and then an hour later, we had lunch and spent a little time at the playground. The rest of the day passed in a pleasant blur. By a quarter to two, I decided I should probably get them back. We gathered up our things, my arms full with towels and beach toys, and I couldn’t hold Stelli’s hand.
“Stay right next to me, sweetie. It’s a busy parking lot.”
Before I could step down from the curb, Stelli ran into the road ahead of me. “Look, a dollar!”
“Stelli, no,” I screamed, watching as if in slow motion when a pickup truck slammed on its brakes, narrowly missing him.
In a panic, I dropped everything and ran, helping him up. I reached out and swatted him on the behind. “Stelli. You have to listen!”
He started crying, and I picked him up and took him back to the curb, where Evie was waiting, her face white.
“You hit me!” he wailed, his voice loud.
“I’m sorry, honey. You just scared me.”
A woman about my age in a black bikini stomped over to us, a look of outrage on her face. “I saw you hit your little boy. What’s the matter with you?”
Before I could answer, she called to a police officer standing a few feet away. “Sir, sir—this woman just hit her child.”
My knees buckled. This couldn’t be happening! I’d never laid a hand on either of the children before. And besides, it was just a swat, barely anything, in reaction to a terrifying moment. Surely everyone had had a moment like this?
But the next thing I knew, we were in the backseat of a police car heading to the Westport Police Station. The children were terrified, and I did my best to calm them.
“It’s going to be okay, guys. They’re calling Daddy.”
“You’ll have to wait here until DCF arrives,” the officer told me as he showed the three of us to a windowless room. He brought in water for the children but nothing for me, looking at me like I was some sort of hardened criminal. Stelli sat on my lap, and I stroked his head while we waited, my other hand holding Evie’s. It wasn’t long before Leo and Piper burst into the room.
The children jumped up and ran into their father’s embrace. “Thank God you’re okay.” He hugged them close, tears rolling down his face. He stood up and glared at me, fury in his eyes, his voice a low growl. “What happened, Joanna? The police said there was a suspicion of”—he lowered his voice so the children couldn’t hear—“child abuse.”
Piper jumped in then, her tearstained face red with anger. “I told you not to let her take them today. We’re supposed to be getting married right now, not standing in a police station!”
Before I could say anything, Leo cut in. “We need to take this discussion elsewhere,” he said, inclining his head toward the children. “Piper, take them to the detective’s office while we wait for DCF. I want to talk to Joanna alone.”
After the door closed, he looked at me and spoke in the tone he used for witnesses. “They told me that you hit Stelli. Have you ever done that before?”
“Of course not. You know I love him, and I would never hurt either of them. It was just a heat-of-the-moment reaction to his running out into the street in front of a truck. It happened before I even realized it.”
He gave me a skeptical look. “I’ll see what the children have to say about that. If I find out you’ve been hurting them in any way . . .” He balled his hands into fists. “And did you know that now DCF is going to investigate me, make sure that I’m a fit parent?” He shook his head. “Do you know how easy it is for parents to lose their rights?”