Chapter 3: What He Said When I Called
I called Mark from the car.
He picked up on the second ring, which told me he'd been waiting.
"Kate.
Are you okay?
Where are you?"
"I'm outside your mother's house."
Silence.
"You're — what?"
"I drove here this morning.
I needed to see the fire damage myself." I kept my voice very steady.
"Mark, the house is fine.
Fresh paint on the door.
Flowers in the yard.
The neighbor told me there was no fire.
She said Judy left a month ago with two suitcases and asked her to water the plants while she was gone."
Nothing from his end.
Not a word.
"Mark."
"Kate, I can explain—"
"Did you know?"
"It's not that simple."
My hand tightened around the phone.
"Did.
You.
Know."
He exhaled slowly.
"She called me before she came.
She said she needed a place to stay for a while.
I didn't ask too many questions.
She's my mother."
"So you lied to me."
"I didn't lie.
I just — I didn't correct her when she said fire."
"That's the same thing."
"Kate—"
"You told me your mother's house burned.
You used that to bring her into our home.
Into our home with a two-month-old baby.
And you knew it wasn't true."
"I thought it would be easier if there was a reason.
If I just said she wanted to come, you would have said no."
"Of course I would have said no!
She tried to take Riley from me, Mark.
Four days after she arrived, she told me to hand over my daughter.
And you knew she had no reason to be there except that she wanted to be."
"She's going through a hard time—"
"What hard time?
Her house is perfect.
Her plants are watered.
She planned this."
He didn't answer.
"I want to know one thing," I said.
"Is she planning to go back?
Or was this always meant to be permanent?"
Another pause.
Too long.
"She mentioned…
she mentioned that the house might be too big for her alone.
That it might make sense to sell it eventually and—"
I stopped listening.
The words kept coming through the phone but I wasn't hearing them anymore.
I was looking at Judy's front door.
The bright, freshly painted door of a woman who had orchestrated every piece of this.
The fake fire.
The helpless widow story.
Mark's silence.
My isolation.
My baby.
"—and I thought maybe if you just gave her a chance, you'd see that she only wants—"
"She wants Riley," I said.
"She told me that herself.
And you put her in my house."
"Kate, you're being—"
"I'm being what?"
He didn't finish the sentence.
"I'm going back to my mom's," I said.
"Don't call me tonight."
"Kate, please don't do this.
We can talk about this.
Just come home and we'll—"
"Which home, Mark?
The one your mother moved into permanently?
Or the one I actually live in?"
I ended the call.
I sat there for another few minutes, watching a sprinkler come on in Judy's front yard.
Automatic timer.
Of course it was.
Everything in that house was taken care of.
Nothing had burned.
Nothing had broken.
The only thing Judy had wanted to destroy was my marriage — and she'd had help doing it.
My phone lit up.
A text from Mark.
*I'm sorry.
I should have told you the truth.
Can we please talk?*
I put the phone face-down on the passenger seat and started the car.
There was nothing to talk about yet.
Not until I understood how deep this went.
Because one thing the neighbor had said was still sitting in the back of my mind, quiet and sharp as a splinter.
*She left about a month ago.*
A month ago, Riley was three weeks old.
I had just come home from the hospital.
I was barely sleeping, barely eating, trying to learn how to keep a tiny human alive.
Judy had packed two suitcases before I even had time to find my footing.
May you like
She hadn't reacted to a crisis.
She had been waiting for one.
