Proof

I told Dad that night anyway, in the garage, where Tara couldn't hear the pitch of my voice climb.

He listened with his arms crossed, and by the time I finished he was already shaking his head. "Tara told me about this. She said Daisy likes copying Pepper, it's a phase, and you walked in and made it into something ugly because you two have never gotten along." He said it kindly, like he was doing me a favor by not being angrier.

I went to bed with my jaw so tight it ached. Somewhere down the hall, Daisy was crying the careful, quiet way, and nobody but me seemed to hear it as a different sound than a toddler being fussy.

The next afternoon, while Tara was at Daisy's pediatric dentist appointment, I let myself into the office off the laundry room where she kept her planner. I told myself I was looking for nothing in particular. I found a spiral notebook wedged behind the printer paper, pages of small dated tallies I didn't understand yet, and one page near the back with a name written and scratched out hard enough to tear the paper: Josie. Beneath it, in Tara's careful handwriting: moved before the reassessment came through.

I didn't know who Josie was. I only knew the sentence made my stomach drop the way it does right before you understand something you can't unknow.

I heard the front door open downstairs, keys hitting the bowl on the counter, footsteps starting up the stairs two at a time.

I shoved the notebook back into its gap with hands that weren't quite steady, and the doorknob turned.