Chapter 6: Her Mother's Kitchen

Nate walked me up the front path of my mother's house in Kenmore and waited until the porch light came on.

"If Travis shows up, call me," he said. "I mean it."

He wrote his number on the back of a parking stub and pressed it into my hand.

Then he went back to his truck and did not drive off until the door opened.

My mother stood there in a flannel robe, her silver hair flat on one side, her reading glasses hanging from their cord.

She looked at my face. She looked at the box in my arms.

She did not cry or ask what had happened.

"Come in," Joan said. "I'll put the kettle on."

I sat at her kitchen table and told her everything.

The dress. The suite. The ultrasound. The statement. The post.

She listened with her hands folded around a mug and her eyes on my face. When I finished, she held out her palm.

"Show me the messages."

I handed her my phone.

She read every line, slowly, her mouth very straight.

"Are these saved anywhere but here?"

"What do you mean?"

"A phone can be dropped in a lake, Lena. Or taken away by a husband who is good at taking things."

She slid the phone back and pushed her laptop across the table.

"Email them to yourself. Then to me. Then print them. Tonight."

I did it while she stood at the counter with her back to me.

I had seen that back before.

It was straight and still, and for a second my chest went tight, because I was eight again.

Then she turned around and put a plate of toast in front of me.