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“Is that enough?” Mary repeated.
“That's enough. You need to go home.”
They both stared at the teacher for a while until they gave up insisting, held my hand, and stared at the door.
“Where are your backpacks and lunchboxes?” I asked when I realized they didn't have them.
“On the bench.” Anne took my hand and let her lead me to the place where they had abandoned their belongings.
“You two can't do this anymore.” I strapped Mary into the car seat before doing the same to the other.
“We wereplaying,Dad.” Anne made an innocent face that would have convinced me in another moment, but just thinking about the distress their little disappearance had caused me made me lose my composure again.
“It's not a joke you should play.”
“Why?”
“It worried me. Something could have happened to you. Bad things happen to taken girls.”
They shrank back, afraid of what I had said.
“Will you promise to behave?”
They nodded.
“So let's go home.” I checked that they were securely fastened before turning around and taking the wheel.
I couldn't possibly lose them.
Chapter ten
“Do you know who I am?” I mumbled to myself, trying to imitate the male voice. “Idiot, starched, in an expensive suit... He might as well shove that thousand-dollar tie up his...”
“What's that, my child?” Grandma was startled by the words that escaped my mouth. “Why are you talking like that?”
“The twins' father misaligned my chakras today.”
“Why?”
“I'd better leave it there.” I took off my bag and put it in the corner of a piece of furniture.
“Now I want to know.”
“I didn't know you were a gossip, Mrs. Abigail.”
“I'm worried about what's stressing you out.”
“It's nothing; it'll pass.”
“But it's not over yet.”
I went to the sofa in the living room and threw my legs up, placing them on the coffee table before venting to my grandmother, recounting what had happened from the disappearance of the girls to the appearance of their arrogant father.
“He was an asshole!”
“Wasn't it?”
“But the man's daughters have disappeared. I'd say anything if it were up to me.”