Chapter 5 — Oliver Comes Back
Richard asked security to find Oliver.
They discovered him sitting in a quiet hallway near the coatroom.
His toy car rested beside him.
He had been crying too.
When he entered the ballroom and saw Emma soaked in a tablecloth, his face changed.
“What happened to her?”
Victoria looked toward him.
“Oliver, did you pull the memorial tablecloth?”
The boy froze.
Then looked toward Emma.
Emma said nothing.
Oliver’s eyes filled.
“I only wanted my car.”
Victoria closed her eyes.
“So you pulled it?”
He nodded.
“A little.”
Then:
“The flowers started falling.”
He pointed toward Emma.
“She pushed me back.”
Claire looked toward her daughter.
Oliver continued.
“The big glass thing almost fell.”
“Emma grabbed it.”
“Then blue stuff went everywhere.”
He looked at Victoria.
“I got scared.”
“So you ran?”
Oliver nodded.
Victoria asked:
“Why didn’t you come tell me?”
Oliver’s answer came quietly.
“Because you get really mad when things go wrong.”
Victoria stared at him.
No one spoke.
Oliver continued.
“Elise said she’d fix it.”
Victoria slowly looked toward Elise.
Then back at Oliver.
“Have I scared you before?”
Oliver shrugged.
That was worse than a yes.
He did not seem to understand why the answer mattered.
To him, Victoria becoming angry when someone made a mistake was simply normal.
Claire looked toward Victoria.
The damaged display was beginning to seem less important with every new sentence.