Chapter 4: The Phone Call That Came Anyway
Greg didn't know about the attorney until the following Tuesday.
He came home from work and set his keys on the counter the way he always did, and I knew from the way he didn't say anything that something had happened.
He stood at the kitchen counter with his back to me for a moment.
Then he turned around.
"Marcus called me today."
I put down the dish towel.
"What did he say?"
Greg pulled out a chair and sat down.
He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with work.
"He said my mother reached out to him.
He said she's concerned about June's wellbeing.
He said she's considering whether a formal welfare check might be appropriate."
The words took a moment to land.
"A welfare check."
"On June."
I sat down across from him.
"She's going to report us."
"She's going to *threaten* to report us." Greg rubbed the back of his neck.
"Marcus was careful.
He said he was calling as a courtesy.
As a family friend.
He said he wanted me to know before anything formal happened."
"That's not a courtesy.
That's a warning shot."
"I know."
"She put our daughter in a storage room and now she's threatening to call someone about June's wellbeing."
"I know."
I looked at him.
"Greg."
"I know." He said it a third time, and this time there was something underneath it.
Not defeat.
Something more controlled than that.
"I've already called someone.
A family law attorney.
Her name is Patricia Holt.
She's been doing this for twenty years."
"What did she say?"
"She said a welfare check based on nothing goes nowhere.
She said the concern is if my mother escalates.
If she starts making formal statements, filing anything, contacting June's school." He paused.
"She said we should document everything.
Starting now."
I thought about the pink mark on June's arm.
I had taken a photograph of it that evening, almost without deciding to.
I hadn't told Greg.
"I took a picture," I said.
"Of June's arm.
The night of the party."
Greg looked at me.
"The mark from where Janet grabbed her."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Send it to Patricia."
I nodded.
We sat at the kitchen table while the house was quiet around us.
June was upstairs.
I could hear the faint sound of her talking to herself — she narrated her own games, always had, a running commentary on whatever world she was building in her room.
"She drew her a flower," I said.
Greg looked up.
"At Thanksgiving.
June drew everyone something personal.
She drew Janet a flower." I looked at the table.
"She still doesn't understand why Grandma doesn't like her."
"She's not going to understand it," Greg said.
"Because there's no version of it that makes sense to a seven-year-old.
There's barely a version that makes sense to me."
"What is the version that makes sense to you?"
He thought about it.
"My mother loved my first marriage the way some people love a photograph," he said slowly.
"Not the actual thing.
The image of it.
The shape of the family she thought she was going to have forever.
When that ended, she needed somewhere to put the grief." He looked at his hands.
"She put it on June."
"That's not grief.
That's cruelty."
"I know." He looked up.
"I'm not excusing it.
I'm just — I spent a long time trying to understand it so I could fix it.
I kept thinking if I explained it right, if I found the right words, she would see what she was doing." He shook his head slowly.
"She sees it.
She's always seen it.
She just doesn't think it's wrong."
The house phone rang.
We both looked at it.
The caller ID read: JANET MOBILE.
Neither of us moved.
It rang four times.
Then stopped.
A minute later, my cell phone lit up on the counter.
A text from an unknown number.
*Greg needs to call his mother.
This situation has gone far enough.
There are things about that woman he doesn't know.
Things she hasn't told him.
He should ask her about the year before they met.*
I turned the phone so Greg could read it.
He read it twice.
"That's Marcus's number," he said.
"What does it mean?"
Greg's expression didn't change.
But his hand, resting on the table, closed slowly into a fist.
May you like
"I don't know," he said.
"But she's already started."
