Chapter 5: What He Told the Family
My father had a sister.
Her name was Patrice.
I had met her exactly twice — once at a funeral when I was small enough that I only remembered her shoes, and once at some family gathering I'd been brought to as a kind of proof of concept when I was about seven, before the visits stopped entirely.
She called Mom on a Saturday morning two weeks after the birthday.
Mom took the call in the bedroom with the door mostly closed.
I heard the tone of it from the hallway — low, careful, the voice Mom used when she was keeping herself very still.
When she came out, she sat down at the kitchen table and looked at her coffee cup for a moment before she spoke.
"Patrice called," she said.
"I know.
I heard."
"Your father has been talking to the family." She looked up.
"He's telling people that Ray poisoned you against him.
That Ray has been saying things about him for years and that's why you did what you did with the car."
I sat down across from her.
"What did Patrice say?"
"She said she wanted me to know, because she doesn't believe it.
She said he's been calling everyone.
His mother.
His cousins.
Two of his old friends who know our family." Mom wrapped both hands around her cup.
"He's building a case."
"For what?"
"I don't know yet."
Ray came in from outside, still in his jacket.
He read the table immediately.
"What happened?"
Mom told him.
He listened without interrupting.
When she finished, he pulled out a chair and sat down slowly.
"He's going to try to make this about me," Ray said.
"Yes," Mom said.
"He's going to say I turned the boy against him."
"Yes."
Ray looked at me.
"Did I ever say anything to you about him?
Anything negative.
Ever."
"No," I said.
"Not once."
"I want you to be sure about that.
Because if he pushes this far enough, someone is going to ask you that question and your answer needs to be true, not just loyal."
"It is true," I said.
"You never talked about him.
I used to wish you would, actually.
When I was younger.
I wanted someone to explain it to me.
But you never did."
Ray nodded.
He looked at the table.
"I didn't think it was my place," he said quietly.
"I know," I said.
Mom reached across and put her hand over Ray's.
He turned his hand over and held it.
The three of us sat there for a moment in the kind of quiet that isn't empty.
Then Ray straightened up.
"He's going to contact the school," he said.
"That's my guess.
He'll try to find someone official to talk to.
A counselor.
An administrator.
He'll frame it as concern."
"Can he do that?" I said.
"He can try," Ray said.
"He's your biological father.
He has standing to make noise, even if he doesn't have standing to do much else."
"What do we do?"
Ray looked at Mom.
Something passed between them.
"We get ahead of it," Mom said.
She picked up her phone and started scrolling for a number.
I watched her face — calm, deliberate, the face she wore when she had already decided something and was simply executing it.
"Who are you calling?" I said.
"A family attorney," she said.
"Someone I spoke to years ago when we were first figuring out custody arrangements.
She told me to call if things ever got complicated."
She looked up at me.
"They're complicated now."
She pressed call and stood up from the table, already moving toward the window, already speaking in that low careful voice.
Ray looked at me across the table.
"You did the right thing," he said.
"With the car.
I want you to know that.
Whatever comes from this — you did the right thing."
"I know," I said.
"It might get harder before it gets easier."
"I know that too."
He looked at me for a long moment.
The kind of look that doesn't need anything added to it.
Then his phone buzzed on the table between us.
He glanced at the screen.
His face changed.
"What?" I said.
He turned the phone so I could see it.
It was a message from a number I didn't recognize.
May you like
Seven words.
*You should have stayed out of this.*
