Lucinda sat on the fireplace hearth, spellbound by the flames, her face all steamy and glowy from the crazy heat, eyelids drowsy as her daddy trucked into the living room donning his sheriff’s cap and pulling on his shiny black sheriff’s parka. “Lucy,” he said, “I need to go out.”
Lucinda hated being called Lucy by anyone, except her dad. He said Lucy different than the other grown-ups who said it in a baby-talk way. Lucinda was not a baby, even if she was the youngest girl in first grade. When Dad called her Lucy it sounded like it should sound: a big girl’s name.
Lucinda picked up a crayon on the hearth and shielded it with her body so her dad couldn’t see, sneaked it through the gap in the fire screen, and flipped it into the fire. The wrapper caught fire, the wax bubbled out in a thin blue stream that burst into tiny flames.
“You’re not playing in the fire, I hope,” her dad said, yanking the zipper of his jacket up snug to his chin, shadowed with its evening whiskers. Lucinda liked his whiskers, how they tickled her cheek when he kissed her good night and good morning. It made her laugh. Her dad laughed a lot. But he wasn’t laughing now. He had a serious look, and his smile wasn’t his real smile. It was his fake smile he used when something was wrong but he tried to pretend it wasn’t. He was a rotten pretender.
“I’m not playing in the fire,” Lucinda fibbed. She felt bad for fibbing, and scared. If her dad caught her in a fib, he would not let her sit by the fire anymore. Yet getting away with her fib made her bubble with excitement. Like she had a secret superpower.
“You better not be lying,” her dad said.
As sheriff, part of his job was to sniff out fibs. Lucinda’s mom rolled her eyes every time he said: Haul the lies out of the darkness and slay them with the light of the truth.
Her dad’s face wasn’t just serious now; he looked—what? Upset? Mad? She gulped. It felt like food had gone down the wrong pipe. Maybe he knew she’d fibbed. If so, she had to admit it right now. It was better to fess up now than to get caught later.
The fire crackled and a spark leaped through the screen out onto the back of Lucinda’s denim jumper, searing a hole in the fabric. “I—”
“You need to come with me. Mom’s upstairs with a tummyache and I might be a while.”
“Is someone in trouble?”
He tugged his gloves onto his hands. “I hope not.”
He walked toward the kitchen door and stood with his hand on the knob, waiting for Lucinda.
Lucinda looked for Baby Beverly, the doll Lucinda took with her everywhere, and who got scared when left alone. Where was she? Lucinda started to peek under the couch for Beverly, but her dad smacked his hands together and said, “Let’s go.”
Lucinda trudged to the door and put on her boots and jacket, fingers trembling so much with the giddiness of going on a real live police call that it took her three whole tries to tie her bootlaces right.
“Where are we going?” she said.
Her dad opened the door and cold air jumped on Lucinda, made her shiver. Her dad left the door open and was halfway out to his truck, moving fast, the way he did that time they were at the beach and the boy had started to drown.
Lucinda hurried out and shut the door.
At the truck, the driver’s door open, her dad stood looking at her.
Lucinda’s excitement flew away like a bird, replaced by what she saw on her dad’s own face. What had been there all along that she’d tried to name, and he’d tried to pretend with a fake smile wasn’t there.
Fear.