Chapter 5
I showed the message to Tasha at the next stoplight.
She kept her eyes on the road. “Call Detective Brooks.”
I called. She asked us to continue to a public place while she spoke with local officers. Tasha drove to a busy grocery store parking lot, where we waited with the doors locked.
Maya saw our faces in the rearview mirror.
“What did he say?”
I turned toward her. “Robert sent a message saying he knows where Aunt Tasha lives. We’ve called the detective, and we’re making a plan before we go there.”
She looked at the store entrance. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
Tasha reached back and squeezed her knee.
An officer met us at the store. He checked Tasha’s neighborhood before following us home. We went inside together. Tasha’s dog, Pepper, ran to Maya and stopped just short of jumping on her. Maya knelt carefully to pet him.
For a moment, she was a girl arriving at her aunt’s house for a visit. I held on to that sight.
Tasha had prepared the guest room for her. I would sleep on an air mattress nearby. Maya checked the window lock and the bedroom door. I let her check them. Then I checked them with her.
“We’ll keep the porch light on,” Tasha said.
That night, a car slowed outside. Maya heard it before I did. We looked through the curtain together.
It kept going.
She sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know how to stop listening for him.”
“You don’t have to stop tonight,” I said. “I’ll be awake.”
“You need sleep.”
“I’ll sleep when you do.”
She lay down with Pepper curled on the rug. I stayed beside her until her breathing slowed.
In the morning, Detective Brooks called. Robert had been told not to come to Tasha’s home. Officers were looking into the message, and she was moving ahead with the case. She also said a specialist interviewer could meet with Maya later in the week, if Dr. Lawson cleared her to attend.
I asked Maya how she felt about it.
“Will you wait for me?”
“The whole time.”
“Then I’ll go.”
We spent the next two days learning how to live in Tasha’s small house. Maya took her medicine and rested. I went to the store with Tasha only when Maya felt comfortable staying with Pepper. I called my manager and arranged time away from work. I told the school Maya would not return until we had a safety plan.
Each call made our situation feel more real. I had left my house, my marriage, and most of our clothes behind. Maya began sleeping longer. That was enough to keep me moving.
On Thursday, I took her to the interview center. A woman named Dana greeted us and explained where I would wait. Maya asked to see the room first. Dana showed it to her and answered every question.
I sat in the waiting area with Tasha. My hands stayed wrapped around a paper cup of water I never drank.
When Maya came out, she looked exhausted. She walked past the chairs and into my arms.
“You did enough,” I told her.
“I said what I remembered.”
“That’s enough.”
Dana said someone would contact us about support services. She did not repeat Maya’s words to me in the hallway. I was grateful. I wanted my daughter to choose what she told me, while the people trained for this work did theirs.
On the drive home, Maya fell asleep against the window.
Tasha glanced at me. “Have you eaten?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I’m making dinner.”
At her house, I found a bag on the porch. There was no note. Inside were two of Maya’s schoolbooks and a framed photograph from our living room.
I recognized Robert’s handwriting on a label taped to the frame.
You forgot your family.
I called the police before touching anything else. The officer who came photographed the bag and took the label. Tasha moved Maya into the kitchen so she wouldn’t see it.
Maya had already noticed my face.
“He came here?” she asked.
“I don’t know who left it. I’m reporting it.”
She held Pepper’s collar while the officer spoke to me at the door.
“I thought he’d be arrested by now,” she said after the officer left.
“I know.”
“Did I not tell them enough?”
I sat beside her. “You told them what happened. Adults are working on the next steps. How fast they move isn’t a measure of whether they believe you.”
She looked down at Pepper. “Do you believe me?”
The question hurt because I had heard it beneath every frightened sentence since the hospital.
May you like
“Yes,” I said. “I believe you.”
She leaned her head on my shoulder. We stayed like that until Tasha called us to dinner.
