Chapter 9 - WHEN THE FAMILY PROBLEM BECAME A RECORD
The county social worker arrived Monday morning.
Her name was Felicia Grant.
She did not accuse.
She asked.
Where was Lily when John found her?
Who had been supervising her?
How often had Sarah provided childcare?
Had Rebecca known about previous outdoor punishments?
Were there other children in the home?
Was Sarah still living there?
John answered carefully.
Rebecca answered more painfully.
“Yes,” she said when Felicia asked whether Lily had previously complained.
“Did you believe her?”
Rebecca’s throat tightened.
“Yes.”
“Then why did the arrangement continue?”
Rebecca looked at John.
He did not rescue her.
“Because I convinced myself Sarah was overwhelmed, not unsafe.”
Felicia wrote something down.
“What made that explanation easier to believe?”
Rebecca’s answer came slowly.
“She’s my sister.”
That was all.
No excuse.
No speech.
Just the truth.
Lily was interviewed separately in an age-appropriate way.
John hated every minute of waiting.
When Felicia finished, she told them Lily had described being excluded from meals, sent outside several times, told she was “not real family,” and warned that complaining would make Rebecca angry with John.
Rebecca covered her mouth.
“I never said that.”
“I’m not saying you did,” Felicia replied. “I’m telling you what Lily says Sarah told her.”
That mattered.
Sarah had not only mistreated Lily.
She had been using Rebecca’s loyalty as leverage.
Later that afternoon, Eric contacted John.
He did not want to discuss Sarah’s custody case in detail.
He wanted to clarify one thing.
“I’m not trying to take Mason away from her.”
John appreciated the sentence.
“She says you are.”
“She says that every time I ask for structure.”
Eric explained that after the earlier neglect incident, Sarah completed parenting classes and gradually restored regular parenting time.
The upcoming review was not punishment.
Sarah herself had requested primary placement.
“She’s been telling everyone I’m trying to keep him from her,” Eric said. “I’m not. I’m asking for a schedule that doesn’t depend on your wife rescuing her every month.”
That sounded familiar.
John asked one question.
“Why did Sarah pour water on me?”
Eric became quiet.
“I don’t know.”
“Rebecca thinks you might.”
“I don’t.”
Then he added:
“But Sarah gets mean when she feels exposed.”
John thought of the patio.
The insult.
The sudden panic when the phone connected.
“Exposed for what?”
Eric hesitated.
“Ask her why she got fired.”
John frowned.
“She said her company downsized.”
“They didn’t.”
“What happened?”
“I only know what she admitted during financial disclosure.”
Eric took a breath.
“She was terminated after altering reimbursement records.”
John looked toward Rebecca.
She was listening from across the room.
“How much?”
“Not enough for criminal charges, apparently. Enough to lose the job.”
Rebecca looked stunned.
Sarah had lied to her too.
The family problem had now reached employment records, custody filings and child-welfare interviews.
But the firing did not explain everything.
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If anything, it exposed a larger question.
How much of Sarah’s “bad luck” had Rebecca unknowingly financed because she never asked for the whole story?
