A local woman missing- Mary Kubica

tell me if he got hurt.” There’s a pause. She asks, “Is that what he
said, Meredith, that he fell at my house?”
“No,” I tell her, “he didn’t say that. But I was just wondering, since
he hasn’t been home all day, and he didn’t have the bruise this
morning.” I don’t mean for it to sound accusatory.
“I’d like to think Leo would have told me if he was hurt,” Charlotte
says. “We could have put some ice on it.”
The way that she says it touches a raw nerve. She’s blaming Leo.
Maybe not for what happened, but for not coming to her for help.
That said, I don’t want to make more out of this than there is. He is
a kid. Kids bump and bruise themselves all the time. Besides, Leo is
the shrinking violet type. He would never have gone to Charlotte for
comfort. That’s outside his comfort zone. The only way Charlotte
would have known is if Delilah saw it happen and told.
Charlotte came recommended from nearly everyone in the
neighborhood who has kids. She’s a patient, loving, grandmotherly
type, though she isn’t a grandmother because she never had kids of
her own. People that we know called her a godsend, an angel. The
best. It doesn’t get better than that.
I say, “I know you would have, Charlotte. I’ll talk to Leo, make sure
he knows he can tell you if he ever gets hurt at your house again.”
I do talk to Leo, but it only settles me somewhat. Because the
realization that harm can come to one of my kids when I’m not there
to protect them still terrifies me.