Chương 5
“I did not use—”
“Mom.”
Noah’s voice cut through.
Diane turned.
He pointed at the phone.
“Just give it to her.”
Diane’s face tightened again, but she unlocked the screen and opened the message thread.
Before handing it over, she said, “There are things in here about Claire too.”
Hannah took the phone.
“Okay.”
“And things your mother believes.”
“Okay.”
“That doesn’t make all of them true.”
Hannah looked up at her.
“Then why did you believe them?”
Diane had no immediate answer.
Grandma made a sound in her throat that could have been approval or indigestion.
Hannah moved beneath the shade of the maple tree and started reading.
I wanted to stand beside her.
I wanted to know every sentence before she did.
I wanted to take the phone, filter what could hurt her, explain context, point out contradictions, and place myself between her and every ugly interpretation.
Instead I stayed where I was.
The restraint felt almost physical, like holding a door closed against wind.
Noah sat on the curb.
Diane remained standing.
Grandma eventually returned to the porch because, as she announced to nobody in particular, her hip had not signed up for a family tribunal in the driveway.
The birthday guests inside had resumed moving around.
Through the screen door, I heard plates being stacked and one of the younger children asking whether they were still allowed to have ice cream.
Life, apparently, had no respect for catastrophe.
Hannah scrolled slowly.
Her expression barely changed.
That worried me more than tears would have.
After a minute she asked, “Who is Mr. Patel?”
“My attorney,” Diane said.
“You have an attorney?”
“No.”
Diane rubbed the side of her nose.
“He’s someone I know through work.”
“You sent him my mom’s messages?”
Diane looked at me.
I stared at her.
“You did what?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Did you send a stranger confidential information about Hannah’s case?”
“He is not a stranger.”
“To you.”
“He told me not to get involved.”
“That advice seems to have landed beautifully.”
Diane flinched.
Grandma called from the porch, “Claire.”
I stopped before anger made the next decision for me.
Hannah kept reading.
“Why does my mom say you told her Claire keeps me from using the phone alone?”
My head snapped toward Diane.
“I never said that.”
Diane lifted both hands.
“I said you had rules about contact.”
“What rules?”
“I didn’t know what the rules were.”
“So you invented one?”
“I was trying to understand why Tessa couldn’t just call Hannah.”
“Because contact has been scheduled through the agency.”
Hannah looked up.
“Why?”
The question came to me.
“Because that was the court-approved plan.”
“Because she missed visits?”
“That was part of it.”
“How many?”
I hesitated.
Hannah saw it.
“Claire.”
“More than half during one period.”
“How long?”
“About three months.”
She returned to the phone.
Diane stepped closer.
“Tessa said some of those were because transportation fell through.”
“Some were.”
I looked at her.
“Did she mention the others?”
Diane’s lips pressed together.
Noah spoke without looking up.
“She didn’t, did she?”
His mother stared at him.
“You don’t know anything about this.”
“I know you never told us she messaged you.”
“That was between adults.”
He laughed under his breath.
“You keep saying that right after doing something to a kid.”
Diane’s face went red.
“Noah, stop.”
He did.
Not because she commanded it.
Because his own words had wounded her, and he was not as comfortable with that as he had wanted to be.
He rubbed both palms against his shorts and looked toward the street.
Hannah read for another minute.
Then she stopped.
“What is this picture?”
I moved closer despite myself.
The image on the screen showed the outside of my house.
Not a listing photo.
Not an old picture.
My actual house, photographed from across the street.
The maple in my front yard had the broken branch from the storm two weeks earlier.
My car was in the driveway.
Hannah enlarged the image with two fingers.
There was a timestamp from nine days ago.
A second photograph showed my back fence from the alley.
A third showed Hannah and me leaving the grocery store.
My stomach dropped so fast I had to steady myself against the tree.
“Did Tessa take those?”
Diane’s voice had lost all defensiveness.
“I assumed so.”
“You assumed?”
“She said she wanted proof you were lying about where Hannah lived.”
I looked at her.
“Why would I lie about where she lives?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did that question occur to you before you kept responding?”
Diane swallowed.
“She told me you were planning to move.”
“I am not.”
“She said you had been looking at houses out of state.”
“No.”
Hannah stared at the photograph of us outside the grocery store.
She was holding a bag of oranges.
I remembered that afternoon because one of the oranges had rolled loose in the parking lot and she had chased it under a pickup.
A normal errand.
A stupid orange.
Someone had been watching.
“Was she there?” Hannah asked.
“I never saw her.”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
She enlarged the photo until the pixels blurred.
Her voice got smaller.
“She was that close.”
I crouched beside her.
“Give me the phone for a second.”
“Why?”
“I want to see when these were sent.”
She handed it over.
The photographs had arrived on different days.
The grocery-store image came first.
Then the house.
Then the alley.
Each had been followed by messages from Tessa.
She watches Hannah constantly.
She won’t let her make choices.
Claire has convinced the county I’m unstable.
I only need someone in the family to see what she’s doing.
Diane’s replies began cautiously.
I don’t know enough about the case to comment.
Then, two days later, they became longer.
What exactly has Claire told the social worker about you?
After that came questions.
Had I prevented phone contact?
May you like
Was I planning to relocate?
Had I said adoption was already guaranteed?
