Chương 3
Savannah touched her elbow.
Victoria moved on.
Inside the consultation room, Mason climbed onto a vinyl chair and tucked his hands under his legs. Ethan remained standing. The room had no windows. A box of tissues sat beside a telephone with too many buttons.
Mara closed the door.
“Ethan, I need you to listen carefully. You are not in trouble.”
He nodded.
“I am not going to ask what is on the drive. The guardian ad litem will talk to you, and the court’s expert will handle the files. Until then, do not explain the recordings to anyone. Not your mother. Not Mason. Not me. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone tell you to bring it today?”
“No.”
“Did anyone know you had it?”
He looked at Mason.
Mara noticed. “Did Mason know?”
Mason shook his head quickly.
Ethan said, “He knew I had something.”
“Did he know what?”
“No.”
Olivia leaned against the table. “How long?”
Mara glanced at her.
“I’m not asking what’s on it. I’m asking how long my son has been walking around with that thing.”
Ethan’s thumb rubbed against the seam of his trouser pocket, though the drive was no longer there.
“Six days.”
Olivia turned away. She pressed both hands against the table and stared at the telephone.
“Six days,” she repeated.
“I kept it in my pencil case.”
“You took it to school?”
He nodded.
“You slept with it in your room?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think someone was going to take it?”
Ethan did not answer.
Olivia’s shoulders lowered.
Mara gave them a moment, then pulled a legal pad from her bag.
“We have practical things to do. First, neither of you goes home alone. Second, we preserve every device in your apartment, including the boys’ tablets, your phone, any old laptops, and external drives. Third, you do not call Jonathan, Victoria, Savannah, the school, or anyone connected to his company. Fourth, if a reporter contacts you, you say nothing.”
“A reporter?” Olivia turned. “Why would a reporter contact me?”
“Jonathan is a prominent developer. There were already two local business reporters outside the courthouse because of his zoning case.”
“This is sealed family court.”
“The hearing is closed. Hallways aren’t always as private as people think.”
Olivia laughed once, not because anything was funny. “Of course.”
Mara wrote something.
“What?” Olivia asked.
“I’m noting that we need to request an order reinforcing confidentiality.”
“You’re writing down my laugh?”
“I’m writing down the press issue.”
“Oh.”
The boys watched them.
Olivia sat beside Mason. Her cardigan fell open where the missing button should have held it.
“Can I hug them now?”
Mara put down her pen.
“Yes.”
Olivia pulled both boys toward her. Mason came easily. Ethan stayed stiff for half a second, then folded into her shoulder.
She smelled like the peppermint gum she chewed when she was nervous. His face pressed against the worn fabric of her cardigan. He had spent days imagining the judge hearing the recordings. He had not imagined what would happen to his mother before anyone heard them.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Olivia held the back of his head.
“No. Not for telling the truth.”
“I didn’t tell you.”
Her hand stopped.
“No,” she said. “You didn’t.”
They left through a side exit after the hallway cleared. Mara walked them to Olivia’s car, a twelve-year-old blue Honda with a dent above the rear wheel. The boys’ backpacks were still inside because Olivia had expected to drop them at Jonathan’s after court.
Ethan climbed into the back seat. Mason sat beside him and clicked his seat belt twice before it caught.
Olivia stood outside with Mara.
Ethan could not hear every word through the closed windows, but he saw Mara point toward the courthouse, then toward Olivia’s phone. Olivia nodded. Her face had the empty, overbright expression she wore when she was trying not to panic in front of them.
On the drive home, no one spoke for seven minutes.
Traffic moved slowly past a row of brick offices. A man in a delivery uniform crossed between cars carrying three paper bags. Mason counted red vehicles under his breath.
At a stoplight, Olivia turned down the heater.
“It’s hot,” she said.
Neither boy answered.
She looked at them in the rearview mirror. “That wasn’t a question.”
Mason said, “I’m okay.”
Ethan stared out the window.
Another block passed.
Olivia said, “Did your father hurt either of you?”
“No,” Ethan said quickly.
Mason looked at his lap.
Olivia gripped the steering wheel.
“Did he touch you in a way he shouldn’t?”
“No.”
“Did anyone else?”
“No.”
“Did he threaten you?”
Mara had told them not to discuss the case. Olivia seemed to remember at the same moment Ethan did. She pulled into the parking lot of a closed pharmacy and stopped the car.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not supposed to ask.”
Mason’s tie was still crooked. He worried the narrow end between his fingers.
Olivia turned in her seat.
“I need to say one thing, and then I won’t ask anything else. You never have to protect me from the truth. Even if the truth is bad for me. Even if you think it will make me sad or make somebody take something away. You do not carry adult problems for me.”
Ethan looked at her.
“What if telling makes it worse?”
Her lips parted.
For several seconds, the only sound was the ticking turn signal she had forgotten to cancel.
“Sometimes it does,” she said. “For a while.”
“That’s not a good answer.”
“No.” She switched off the signal. “It’s the honest one.”
At the apartment, Mara arrived with a paralegal and a stack of evidence bags. They photographed the family laptop, Olivia’s phone, two school tablets, an old tablet with a cracked corner, and a cardboard box containing chargers nobody had identified in years.
May you like
Ethan watched from the kitchen doorway.
The apartment was on the third floor above a laundromat. Pipes knocked whenever the downstairs machines switched cycles. Their kitchen table had one leg supported by folded cardboard. Olivia had covered it with a clean cloth for breakfast before court, but a circle from Mason’s orange juice remained near the edge.
