Chapter 9: The Morning After
We got home at midnight.
Lily woke briefly when Marcus carried her inside, looked at his face, and said "Daddy" in the soft, half-asleep way she had, and went back under.
He stood in her doorway for a long time after he laid her down.
I made tea I didn't drink.
We sat at the kitchen table and went through the envelope again — the photographs, the text message screenshot, the letter — spreading them out like evidence, which is what they were.
"I want to talk to a lawyer," Marcus said.
I looked up.
"Not for a divorce," he said quickly.
"I mean — I want to know what our options are.
If she keeps saying what she's been saying about Lily, is that defamation?
Is there anything we can do legally to make her stop?"
"I don't know," I said.
"But I think we should find out."
"And I want to talk to a family therapist.
For Lily." He looked toward the hallway.
"She wasn't surprised tonight.
That's what you said.
She wasn't surprised that her grandmother pushed her.
That means it's happened before in ways we didn't see."
"Or ways Lily didn't tell us about."
"Because she's four.
Because she doesn't have the words.
Because she probably thought it was normal." He pressed both hands flat on the table.
"I need to know what Lily has been told.
What she's absorbed.
What she thinks about herself because of what my mother has been doing."
I reached across and put my hand over his.
"We'll find out," I said.
"We'll fix it."
He turned his hand over and held mine.
"I owe you an apology," he said.
"Marcus—"
"Let me say it.
I knew my mother was difficult.
I knew she was hard on you sometimes.
I told myself it was generational, that it was just how she was, that she loved Lily even if she had a strange way of showing it." He looked at the letter on the table.
"I made excuses because it was easier.
And while I was making excuses, she was in rooms I wasn't in, saying things about my daughter to people I trusted."
"You didn't know."
"I should have looked harder." He met my eyes.
"I'm sorry."
I squeezed his hand.
We sat there for a while without talking.
The house was quiet.
Outside, a car passed slowly on the street.
Then my phone lit up on the table.
A text from Patricia.
*She came to my house tonight.
After the reception.
She knocked on my door and told me that if I ever interfered in her family again, she would make sure everyone in our neighborhood knew about my son's bankruptcy.
She had dates.
She had amounts.
She had clearly been holding it for years.*
I read it to Marcus.
He stared at the ceiling.
"She keeps files on people," he said.
"She always has.
I thought it was just her being organized." He paused.
"It's leverage.
She keeps leverage on everyone."
"Patricia isn't going to back down," I said.
"She came to me tonight knowing Diane would find out."
"No," Marcus said.
"She's not going to back down." He picked up his phone.
"But my mother just made a threat against a witness.
May you like
And I think a lawyer needs to know about that first thing tomorrow morning."
He was already dialing.
