I scrambled forward on my knees, ignoring the pain in my shins as I reached her. A dark, thick line of blood began to seep from a deep cut just above her right eyebrow, pooling quickly on the dusty floor.
“Russell, she is bleeding,” I said, my voice rising for the first time. “Get a doctor down here right now.”
The guard took a step toward us, his hand reaching for his pocket.
“Sir, should I call the house physician?” the guard asked, his voice hesitant as he looked at the blood.
“No,” Russell said, his voice cold and flat. “She is just trying to get attention.”
I pulled against the pink silk ribbon, ignoring the way the fabric bit deep into the skin of my wrists. With a sharp, desperate wrench, the cheap material tore apart, freeing my hands.
The broken pieces of ribbon fluttered to the floor, useless now. I did not care about the pain or the blood dripping from my own wrists.
I immediately gathered Phoebe into my lap, pressing my palm against her forehead to stem the flow of blood. The red stain spread quickly across my fingers, warm and terrifyingly bright against her pale skin.
Phoebe whimpered, her small body shaking as she clung to my wet skirt.
Russell stood frozen, his eyes wide as he stared at the blood on the floor. For a brief second, I thought I saw a flicker of concern in his eyes, but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Gwendolyn took a step back, her small hand covering her mouth as she let out a delicate gasp.
“This is exactly what happens when you refuse to control your temper, Heather,” Russell said, his voice tightening as he recovered his composure. “If you had simply apologized, we would not be in this basement.”
“She slipped, Russell,” I said, my hand shaking against my daughter’s forehead. “She is five years old. Call an ambulance.”
“Your neglect caused this accident, and now you want to make a scene in front of our guests,” Russell said, checking his gold watch once more. “You will not use this to manipulate me.”
“She is a child, Russell,” I whispered, the final remnants of my respect for him crumbling into nothing. “She is your daughter.”
Gwendolyn began to sniffle, clutching Russell’s arm tightly as she pulled him toward the stairs.
“It is so loud down here, Russell,” Gwendolyn whispered, her eyes wide with false innocence. “It is making my head hurt, and the blood is making me sick.”
Russell turned his back on his bleeding daughter to comfort his sobbing mistress.
The lock clicked, and the heavy metal bolt slid into place with a dry, scraping sound.
Phoebe did not cry, but her breathing was too fast, a small fluttering in her chest that I could feel against my ribs. The cellar air smelled of old potatoes, damp concrete, and the faint, sweet scent of the laundry detergent from the washing machine in the far corner.
I pulled her closer into the small circle of light from the single bulb hanging overhead. The blood from the cut on her forehead had already crossed her eyebrow, dark and thick in the dim light.
“It is just a little scratch, sweetheart,” I whispered, though my own throat felt tight.
I reached down to the hem of my yellow cotton dress. The fabric was old, washed so many times it gave way with a soft, clean rip when I yanked it.
I folded the strip of cotton into a small pad and pressed it against her temple. Phoebe flinched, her small fingers tightening around the ear of her stuffed rabbit.
“Hold this for Mommy, just like this,” I said, placing her small hand over the cloth.
She held it there, her chin trembling. After three minutes, the white cotton turned a deep, heavy red, the moisture spreading quickly through the fibers.
The bleeding was not stopping.
“Does it sting?” I asked her, brushing a stray lock of hair away from her damp temple.
“A little bit,” she whispered. She rubbed her eyes with her free hand, leaving a tiny smudge of dark gray dirt on her pale cheek.
“You are being very brave,” I said. “Just like Barnaby.”
She looked down at the stuffed rabbit, whose gray felt ears were worn thin from years of being carried around. A small pink silk ribbon was tied around the rabbit’s neck, a ribbon I had bought for five dollars at the craft store in town last Tuesday to replace the old one.
The ribbon was the exact shade of the one Russell had used to bind my wrists only minutes before. I looked down at my hands, where the red marks from the silk were still visible on my skin, a hot, stinging reminder of his grip.
I took another piece of the torn dress and folded it over the first layer. The cotton was thin, and the dark stain soaked through almost instantly, turning the bright yellow fabric into a muddy brown.
“Mommy,” Phoebe said, her voice dropping even lower, her eyes fixed on the concrete floor. “Why is Daddy mad at us?”
“He is just confused right now, baby,” I said, though the words felt like sand in my mouth.
“I saw Aunt Gwendolyn,” she said. “She had the big silver scissors from the desk.”
I kept my hand steady against her forehead, but my fingers grew cold.
“We will talk about that later,” I said. “Right now, we need to keep this tight.”
By eight o’clock, the patch of red had soaked through a second strip of my hem. Phoebe sat on the bottom step, her eyes half-closed, her head leaning heavily against my shoulder.
A sharp clatter echoed from the top of the stairs. The small iron slide on the door slot scraped open, letting in a thin wedge of yellow hallway light.
“Heather,” Russell said. His voice was muffled, coming through the narrow opening.
I stood up, leaving Phoebe on the step, and walked to the door. I had to look upward to face the small metal grate.
