Chapter 5 - What Damon Asked His Mother to Do
Loretta came to Ellis’s house that afternoon.
She looked nothing like the cold woman Blythe had imagined during pregnancy.
She looked ashamed.
That was harder to deal with.
Loretta sat across from Blythe while Arlo slept nearby.
“Damon called me in June,” she began.
Blythe had been seven months pregnant.
“He said you were getting unstable.”
“What did that mean?”
“He said you cried too much. Accused him of controlling you. Threatened to leave.”
“I did accuse him of controlling me.”
Loretta nodded.
“I know.”
That answer stopped Blythe.
“How?”
“Because eventually he sent me screenshots.”
The messages were real.
But Damon had removed the parts that showed why Blythe was upset.
One argument had started because he canceled plans with Ellis without telling her.
Another because he took her debit card after she ordered nursery furniture Damon considered unnecessary.
Another because he insisted she stop seeing Kara, whom he called “a bad influence.”
Damon had shown Loretta only Blythe’s angriest responses.
Then he asked his mother to keep notes.
“If she seems irrational after the birth, document it.”
Blythe felt cold.
“He wanted you watching me.”
“At first, yes.”
“And you agreed?”
Loretta looked down.
“For a while.”
Ellis shifted in his chair.
Blythe raised one hand.
She wanted Loretta to answer.
“Why?”
Loretta swallowed.
“Because Damon told me he was afraid you’d disappear with the baby.”
Blythe almost laughed.
“I could barely walk to the bathroom.”
“I know that now.”
“What changed?”
“His stories stopped matching.”
Damon claimed Blythe had threatened to prevent him from seeing Arlo.
Loretta later saw Blythe invite Damon’s relatives to the baby shower.
He claimed Blythe refused medical care.
Loretta learned Blythe attended every prenatal appointment.
He said Blythe planned to cut him off financially.
Then he asked Loretta whether she knew a lawyer who handled emergency custody.
Before Arlo was even born.
Loretta became frightened.
Not of Blythe.
Of what Damon was preparing for.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Loretta’s eyes filled.
“I was afraid you’d tell him.”
“So you let me go home with him.”
That accusation landed.
Loretta did not defend herself.
“I made the wrong choice.”
Blythe looked away.
Loretta had eventually acted.
But eventually had come after months of silence.
Before leaving, Loretta handed Ellis a written timeline of Damon’s calls and messages.
Not secret evidence.
Her own contemporaneous notes.
Blythe read the first dated entry.
June 18.
Damon: She won’t make it as a mother. When she falls apart, I need people who saw it coming.
Blythe read the line twice.
Damon had not simply feared losing control after Arlo was born.
May you like
He had expected an opportunity.
The question was what he had planned to do with it.
