Chapter 4 - THE ACCIDENT LOG
The adoption home-study worker, Dana Reeves, called Sarah the next morning.
“I need to ask about prior incidents.”
Sarah frowned.
“What prior incidents?”
Dana had a file.
Rachel had supplied it.
An “accident and behavior log.”
Six months of entries.
Emily fell from a scooter.
Emily bruised her shin near stairs.
Emily broke a lamp during a tantrum.
Emily scratched her arm climbing a fence.
Emily slipped in the bathtub.
Some were real.
Sarah remembered them.
But the descriptions were different.
One read:
EMILY OFTEN BECOMES PHYSICALLY CARELESS WHEN EMOTIONALLY ESCALATED.
Another:
CHILD HAS DIFFICULTY ACCEPTING ROUTINE CORRECTION FROM STEPPARENT.
Sarah stared at the copy Dana emailed.
“Who wrote this?”
“Rachel.”
“Why was I never shown it?”
Dana went quiet.
“She said you were aware.”
Sarah’s chest tightened.
Rachel had not invented every accident.
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She had turned ordinary childhood events into a pattern.
A pattern that made Emily look unreliable.
