Chapter 3 — Robert Had Already Decided Sophie Was Being Careless
Earlier that afternoon, Sophie helped Helen decorate the lower half of the tree.
Helen gave her a small box of safe decorations.
Wooden stars.
Fabric snowmen.
Plastic candy canes.
Nothing breakable.
Sophie loved deciding where each one belonged.
Robert did not love the process nearly as much.
He had spent most of the morning arranging the tree.
He liked ornaments evenly spaced.
Lights hidden correctly.
Garland balanced.
Helen joked that Robert decorated Christmas trees as if judges were arriving.
Then Sophie began moving things.
One wooden star went beside another wooden star.
A snowman faced backward.
Three candy canes ended up on the same branch.
Robert corrected them.
Sophie moved them again.
“Grandpa, that’s mine.”
“It looks better here.”
“Grandma said I can choose.”
Helen called from the kitchen:
“She’s right.”
Robert reluctantly stepped away.
Then Sophie moved one decorative bell.
It fell onto the carpet.
Nothing broke.
But Robert reacted immediately.
“Careful!”
Sophie picked it up.
“Sorry.”
From that moment, Robert started watching her around the tree.
Not because she had damaged anything.
Because he expected that she might.
So when he later walked into the room…
saw Sophie beside the tree…
and saw Helen’s ornament shattered…
his mind completed the story instantly.
Sophie had been careless again.
Except there had been no “again.”
One lightweight bell falling onto carpet had become evidence of a pattern that existed mostly in Robert’s head.
Daniel looked toward him.
“You didn’t investigate anything.”
Robert nodded slowly.
“No.”
“You saw what you expected to see.”
Robert looked toward Sophie.
“Yes.”
Sophie whispered:
“I said I didn’t.”
Robert’s face tightened.
“I know.”
That was the part he could not blame on the cat.