It rang. Once. Twice. Three times. On the fourth ring she answered, and her voice was bright, breathless, full of background noise— laughter, music, the clatter of something fun.
“You should have seen the place,” she said immediately, like she’d been waiting to share. “Logan didn’t want to leave— he went on the big slide twice. Ella cried when we told her we were going home. Total meltdown.”
I gripped the phone so hard my hand ached. “Where is Lucy?” I asked.
There was a pause, not alarm, not confusion— just the subtle sound of someone deciding how much effort to invest in the answer.
“She’s in the car,” Amanda said finally. Casual. As if she were talking about a jacket left on a seat.
“In the car,” I repeated.
“Yeah,” she said, and I heard something like a shrug in the way her voice shifted. “We told her to stay there.”
My stomach dropped so hard it felt like falling.
“Why?” I asked.
“Oh, come on,” Amanda said, already irritated. “She was acting up all afternoon. Complaining about everything. She wouldn’t stop whining. We needed a break.”
“A break,” I repeated, because my brain couldn’t make it real.