I first tried my hand at acting in middle school, mostly to escape from the dark cloud of misery hanging over our house—a silent father who spent his evenings dozing in front of a TV, a surly older sister eating her feelings and everything else in sight, rooms that without my mother’s touches had grown faded and dusty. I coped by cloaking myself in someone else’s skin—a lighthearted mermaid falling in love for the first time, or the dancing, singing, footloose daughter of a strict preacher father. Anyone but a sad and lonely eighth-grader longing for her mother.

It’s those old, sucky acting skills I call upon now when I hear noises at the end of the hall. I sit up straight as my body goes rock-hard, my fingers digging into the velvet armrests of the chair. I wipe my expression clean and force my muscles to relax, my face to look normal—or as normal as a mother’s face can be, tied to a forty-pound chair.

An animated Baxter comes first, his stuffed gorilla Gibson pinned under an arm, skipping like he’s headed for a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. He blathers on about the shows he wants to watch, the popcorn his mommy would let him have. I stare at him, gritting my teeth and trying to appear fearless, courageous. My son doesn’t so much as glance over.

The man follows behind. He comes into view, and my heart clenches.

Showtime.

I can’t quite see him from this angle, but I know the second he spots Beatrix’s empty chair. I hear his grunt of surprise, the stumble in his footsteps when he comes up on an empty room. He curses, a long string of expletives followed by Baxter’s high-pitched giggle.

“Beatrix! You get your butt back in here, missy. Right now.”

There’s a long stretch of silence while he waits for an answer. I hear the low volume on the TV, fast and heavy footsteps, breaths huffing with emotion, but nothing from Beatrix. Of course there’s not. By now she’s had a good thirty, maybe forty-five seconds to get wherever she’s going, and I already know her tiptoe skills are stealth. I picture her downstairs, sneaking from room to room, trying out all her normal hiding spots until she finds the best one.

The man stomps into the hall. “You better believe I’m going to find your scrawny little butt, so you might as well come out now. Come out and take your punishment like a girl.” He looks at me, eyes flashing. “Where is she? Where’d she go?”

I frown, blink my eyes in stage-managed confusion. “I thought she was with you.”

Jesus, that was bad. Overacted, leaned way too hard into the enunciation and my voice cracked on the last word.