Chapter 5: Patrice
I didn't sleep that night.
I sat in the armchair by the living room window with the front door locked and the porch light on and my phone in my lap.
Dana slept on the couch with one arm around both children and the baby in the bassinet we'd pulled from the storage closet — the same one my grandchildren had used when they were newborns.
At 4 a.m.
I heard Dana's phone buzz on the coffee table.
She was awake before the second buzz.
She read the screen, sat up slowly so she wouldn't wake the children, and came to stand beside my chair.
"Patrice is asking for me," she said.
"Now?"
"She's been moved to the hospital.
She's — they say she's stable, but she's asking." Dana looked at the bassinet.
"She's asking about Lily."
"Go," I said.
"I can't leave you here alone."
"There's a police car in the driveway, Dana.
Go."
She looked at me for a moment.
Then she pulled on her jacket, kissed the top of my head the way she used to when she was small and I was the one sitting down, and left.
I sat with the baby until sunrise.
Lily slept through all of it.
Small and certain, the way newborns are — as if the world is still simple, as if nothing has been decided yet.
Dana came back at seven-thirty.
She sat down at the kitchen table and I put coffee in front of her and she wrapped both hands around the mug and didn't speak for almost a full minute.
"How is she?" I asked.
"Physically, she's going to be okay." Dana stared into the mug.
"Everything else is — it's a lot."
"Did she talk to you?"
"For two hours." Dana set the mug down.
"Mom, she was seventeen when she met him.
Seventeen.
He told her he loved her.
He told her he'd take care of her.
She had no family, no money, nowhere to go." She stopped.
"By the time she understood what was happening, she was already in that house."
I sat down across from her.
"She said she tried to leave once.
Eight months ago." Dana's voice was careful and flat, the way people speak when they are holding something very heavy and trying not to drop it.
"He found her the same day.
After that, he took her phone.
He took her shoes.
He told her if she tried again, he would make sure she never saw the baby."
"But the baby wasn't born yet."
"He said it anyway.
He was already planning." Dana looked up.
"She said she started praying that someone would just — notice.
That someone would look at the house and think something was wrong.
She said she used to stand at the window and just — wait."
I thought about Dana driving those streets for three days.
Looking at houses.
"She saw you," I said.
Dana nodded.
"She waved a dish towel.
Just once, through the glass.
She said she almost didn't do it because she was afraid he was watching." Dana's eyes were wet.
"I almost didn't stop.
I thought it was nothing.
I thought I was seeing what I wanted to see."
"But you stopped."
"I stopped."
We sat there for a moment.
"She wants Lily back," Dana said.
"As soon as she's well enough.
She wants to raise her."
"Can she?"
"Reeves thinks so.
There's a program — housing, support, legal protection.
Patrice qualifies." Dana picked up the mug again.
"But first we have to get through the hearing.
And Victor's lawyer is going to try to take Lily before that happens."
"What do we do?"
Dana looked at me steadily.
"Reeves says there's a witness," she said.
"Someone who worked for Victor.
Someone who kept records."
"Records of what?"
"Everything," Dana said.
"Names.
Dates.
Payments.
The other women." She paused.
"Reeves says if this witness testifies, Victor doesn't just lose Lily.
He loses everything."
"Then why hasn't this witness come forward before?"
Dana was quiet for a moment.
May you like
"Because Victor knows where her children go to school," she said.
The coffee between us went cold.
