Chapter 10: What the Prosecutor Said
The girls arrived at eleven in the morning, brought by the neighbor whose name, I learned, was Ruth.
Ruth was sixty-three and had lived next door for nine years.
She walked in carrying my two-year-old on her hip and holding my four-year-old's hand, and she stopped just inside the door and looked at me with an expression that held no surprise at all — only a long, tired recognition, like something she had been waiting to see resolved.
"I kept the key," she said.
"I didn't know what else to do with it."
"You kept my daughters safe," I said.
She shook her head.
"Your daughter kept them safe.
I just held the key."
My four-year-old crossed the room and climbed onto the bed beside me with the careful deliberateness of a child who has learned to move through spaces without making noise.
She put her hand on my stomach and looked up at me.
"Is the baby okay?" she said.
"The baby is okay," I said.
She nodded, satisfied, and leaned against me.
My two-year-old reached for me from Ruth's arms.
I took her and held her against my chest and felt her small weight settle into me the way it always did, completely, like she had never learned to hold anything back.
Lin stood near the door.
Ruth sat in the corner chair and said nothing.
Donna checked the monitor and left quickly.
We stayed like that for a while.
No one spoke.
There was nothing that needed to be said.
At one-thirty, Harmon called.
"The prosecutor has reviewed the recordings and the statement," he said.
"She's moving forward."
"With what charges?"
"For your husband — domestic @buse, aggravated @ssault, and unlawful restraint.
The pregnancy elevates two of those charges under Texas statute." A pause.
"For his mother — four counts of conspiracy, two counts of identity fraud, and one count of obstruction.
The storage unit contents are being processed.
There may be additional charges."
I was quiet for a moment.
"The other women," I said.
"Mei.
The others."
"The prosecutor is reaching out to prior jurisdictions today.
What we found in the storage unit gives those cases new documentation." Harmon paused.
"It's possible charges will be filed in other states as well.
That's not something I can promise, but it's something I believe."
"Will they have to testify?"
"That's up to them.
But they'll be contacted." He paused again.
"I thought you'd want to know that Mei has already been called.
She picked up immediately."
I looked at my daughters on the bed beside me.
"Thank you," I said.
"One more thing," Harmon said.
"Your husband's attorney requested a meeting with the prosecutor this morning.
He brought a counter-narrative — the psychiatric angle, the instability claim, the letter." A pause.
"The prosecutor listened to the first recording and told the attorney she had heard enough.
The meeting lasted eleven minutes."
I set the phone down.
My four-year-old looked up at me.
"Who was that?"
"Someone who helped us," I said.
She considered this.
"Are we going home?"
I looked at Lin.
Lin looked at Ruth.
Ruth looked at her hands.
"Not to that house," I said.
"But yes.
We're going home."
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My daughter thought about this for a moment with the serious, unhurried attention she gave to everything that mattered.
Then she put her head back against my shoulder and said, "Okay."
