Chapter 3: What the Log Said
The officer's name was Reyes.
He was younger than my father, with a calm face that didn't give anything away.
He held my mother's old phone carefully, like he understood it was more than a phone.
"How many calls are on here?" my father asked.
Officer Reyes scrolled slowly.
"Fourteen outgoing calls to this same number over the past four months.
All between nine p.m.
and midnight."
My father looked at Grandma.
She looked at me.
"Ethan." Dad crouched down to my level.
His voice was very quiet.
"Did you call Grandma before tonight?"
I nodded.
"How many times?"
I looked at the floor.
"A lot."
Karen made a sound — something between a laugh and a cough.
"He's a child.
He exaggerates.
He calls her when he can't sleep, when he wants candy, when—"
"Ma'am." Officer Reyes didn't raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
"The calls average forty minutes each.
Children don't stay on the phone for forty minutes because they want candy."
The second officer, whose name tag read WALSH, had been standing near the hallway.
He stepped forward now.
"Mrs.
Calloway, is there somewhere the boy can sit down?
Somewhere warm?"
Karen pointed toward the living room.
Nobody moved toward where she pointed.
Grandma took me to the kitchen instead, sat me on the counter, and pulled a blanket from the chair by the back door — the one she'd brought herself, I realized.
She'd thought to bring a blanket.
From the kitchen I could hear everything.
"These calls," my father said.
"What was he telling her?"
Officer Reyes paused.
"Sir, I think it would be better if your mother described that directly.
She's the one who received them."
A chair scraped.
My father sat down.
Grandma came back to the doorway between the kitchen and the living room.
She kept one hand on my knee.
"The first time he called," she said, "it was October.
He told me Karen had made him stand in the corner for three hours because he'd forgotten to make his bed.
I thought — children exaggerate.
I told myself that."
"Mom—"
"Let me finish, David." Her voice didn't shake.
"The second time, he told me she'd thrown his dinner in the trash because he ate too slowly.
The third time, he was crying so hard I couldn't understand him for five minutes." She stopped.
"That was the night she told him his real mother never actually loved him.
That she'd only pretended."
The kitchen was very quiet.
I stared at the blanket on my lap.
Karen's voice came sharp and fast from the living room.
"That is a complete lie.
I never said anything like that.
He's making things up because he doesn't want to get in trouble for the juice."
"He's seven," Grandma said.
She wasn't shouting.
That was the thing about Grandma — she never needed to shout.
"He called me fourteen times in four months.
In the dark.
In secret.
Because he was afraid to call from inside the house."
Officer Walsh spoke next.
"Why was he afraid to call from inside the house, son?"
I looked up.
"Because Karen checks the phone bill," I said.
Nobody said anything for a long moment.
Then my father made a sound I had never heard him make before.
It wasn't a word.
It was the sound of something breaking very quietly inside a person.
Karen's voice changed.
The sharpness went out of it.
Something softer and more dangerous came in.
"David.
David, listen to me.
You know how kids are.
You know how he gets attached to her — she encourages it, she always has, she calls him every Sunday and fills his head with—"
"Karen." My father's voice had gone completely flat.
"Stop talking."
Officer Reyes cleared his throat.
"Mr.
Calloway, given the nature and frequency of these calls, and the condition we found the child in tonight, we're required to file a report with Child Protective Services.
Someone will be in contact within forty-eight hours."
Karen stood up so fast her chair hit the wall.
"You are not doing that.
This is our home.
This is a private family matter and you have no right to—"
"Ma'am." Walsh moved one step closer.
Just one.
"Sit down, please."
She sat down.
But as she did, her eyes found mine across the room.
May you like
And the look she gave me was not fear.
It was a promise.
