Chapter 4: The Contact Saved As Dad
I took the phone from Officer Daniels slowly.
The call had already gone to voicemail.
The screen showed the contact name — Dad — and beneath it, a number I didn't recognize.
"That's not my father's number," I said.
Daniels nodded.
"Do you know whose it is?"
"No."
Noah was watching me from the couch.
I had sent him there with a glass of water and a blanket, trying to give him something ordinary to hold onto.
He was watching my face the way children do when they're trying to decide how worried to be.
I kept my expression calm.
"Can I listen to the voicemail?"
"The phone is currently evidence," Daniels said.
"But I can note that you've flagged it."
He wrote something in his notebook.
Then he looked up.
"Mrs.—"
"Emily," I said.
"Just Emily."
"Emily.
Is there anyone you can call tonight?
Family, a friend?
Someone who can come be with you and your son?"
I thought of my sister, Carol.
She lived forty minutes away in Fort Worth.
She had been telling me for two years to leave.
I had told her two years of reasons why I couldn't.
"Yes," I said.
"I'll call my sister."
After Daniels stepped back outside, I sat down next to Noah and borrowed his blanket corner.
"Mom," he said.
"Who's the lady in the picture?"
I looked at him.
He had seen the screen.
"I don't know yet," I said.
"Is that why Dad was so angry all the time?"
I didn't answer right away.
I thought about the past year.
The nights Ryan came home late smelling like something other than just alcohol.
The way he had started locking his phone face-down on the counter.
The weekend trips for work that left no receipts, no stories, no details.
"Maybe," I said.
Noah pulled the blanket tighter.
"That's not fair to you."
"No," I said.
"It isn't."
Carol arrived at 2:15 a.m.
She came through the door and looked at my face and pulled me into a hug without saying a single word.
Over my shoulder I heard her voice go rough.
"Oh, Em."
"I'm okay," I said into her shoulder.
"You're not," she said.
"But you will be."
She held Noah for a long time after that.
Fed him crackers and let him tell her everything in his own order, which was not chronological but was completely accurate.
Carol listened to every word.
She didn't cry in front of him.
She saved that for the kitchen, later, when Noah had finally fallen asleep on the couch.
"Fourteen videos," she said.
She was holding her coffee mug with both hands and not drinking from it.
"Since February."
"He's eight."
"I know."
Carol set the mug down.
"Emily, I need to ask you something and I need you to actually answer me."
"Okay."
"How long?"
I knew what she was asking.
Not how long had Noah been recording.
How long had it been happening.
I looked at the table.
"Three years."
Carol was quiet for a moment.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I kept thinking it would get better," I said.
"And then it would get a little better, and I would think I was right.
And then it would get worse again."
"That's how it works," Carol said.
Her voice was not unkind.
Just tired.
"That's exactly how it works, and that's why it's so hard to leave."
I nodded.
"You're leaving now," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"Good." She picked up her mug again.
"Because I already called David."
David was her husband.
A family attorney.
I looked at her.
"Carol—"
"He's awake.
He's already pulling the relevant statutes.
He says with video evidence of this duration and consistency, Ryan is not going to have a comfortable next several months."
Something moved in my chest.
Not relief yet.
Something smaller.
The first edge of it.
"And the woman in the contact?" I asked.
Carol's expression shifted.
"Tell me about the contact."
I described it.
The name.
The photo.
The unfamiliar number.
Carol was quiet for a long moment.
"Ryan's brother," she said slowly.
"Marcus.
He works with someone — I think her name is Jess.
Ryan mentioned her once at Thanksgiving.
Said she was Marcus's new paralegal."
She looked at me.
"I think you need to find out who that number actually belongs to," she said.
"Before Ryan does."
My phone was still with the police.
But Ryan's phone was not.
I looked toward the hallway where Ryan's jacket was still hanging on the hook by the door.
The same place he always hung it.
The same place it had been hanging for three years.
His phone was in the left pocket.
It always was.
Carol followed my gaze.
"David says anything in the marital home is fair to document," she said carefully.
"He's not saying take it.
He's saying — document."
I stood up from the table.
May you like
Whatever was on that phone, Ryan had whispered those words — *I didn't mean for it to go this far* — and he had not been talking about hjting me.
He had been talking about something else entirely.
