Chapter 6 - THE NUMBER NORMA DIDN’T KNOW HE HADChristopher found Mia’s number in an old text thread from June.
He stood in Carolyn’s driveway with Sarah’s duffel at his feet, a stack of unopened letters in one hand, and tapped call.
It rang five times.
Voicemail.
He ended the call and tried again.
No answer.
He tried a third time.
This time a woman picked up, breathless and wary.
“Hello?”
Christopher closed his eyes for one second.
“Mia?”
Silence.
Then:
“Chris?”
He’d never heard a voice sound so relieved and so afraid at the same time.
“Where are you?”
Another silence.
“In Green Bay. Why?”
“I have Sarah.”
No breath came through the line.
Then a choked noise.
“What?”
“She’s safe.”
“Oh my God.”
He turned away so Carolyn, watching from her porch, wouldn’t see his eyes.
“Why haven’t you seen her?”
Mia started crying.
Not loud.
The kind of crying people do when they’ve been trying not to for too long.
“Norma told me Sarah panicked every time I called.”
Christopher stared at his mother’s house across the street.
“Mia.”
“She said the therapist at the program thought too much contact was making Sarah worse. Then after I got out, she said Sarah didn’t want to talk because she blamed me for leaving.”
Sarah had used that exact word in the guest room an hour earlier.
Left.
Christopher gripped the phone tighter.
“Did you try to visit?”
“Yes.”
The answer came so fast it sounded like pain.
“The first time Norma told me Sarah was at a sleepover. The second time she said Sarah got sick at school. The third time she said if I kept showing up, she’d file for temporary guardianship because I was destabilizing her.”
Christopher felt sick.
“You believed her?”
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
Mia exhaled shakily.
“Chris, I got out of treatment with almost no money, a pile of grief, and a social worker telling me not to let shame stop me from asking for help. I asked Norma if I could have Sarah home. She said I should prove I was steady first. Then she said Sarah needed routine. Then she said the court would never look kindly on a woman fresh out of residential treatment dragging a child through more upheaval.”
Christopher rubbed a hand over his face.
“Did she actually file anything?”
“I got a letter from an attorney three weeks ago threatening to if I ‘interfered with the child’s current placement.’”
Placement.
As if Sarah were furniture.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Mia’s voice cracked.
“Because your mother told me you agreed she should keep Sarah until Christmas.”
He went perfectly still.
“She said what?”
“She said you were furious with me for leaving Sarah and didn’t want to be involved unless I respected the family’s decision.”
Christopher leaned his forehead against the cold side of his truck.
Of course.
Norma hadn’t simply cut Sarah off from Mia.
She had walled off every adult who might compare notes.
“Come to Appleton,” he said.
A beat.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“What about Sarah?”
“She needs to hear your voice today.”
Mia started crying again, harder this time.
“Does she hate me?”
May you like
Christopher looked through Carolyn’s front window, where Sarah sat on the couch hugging the backpack.
“No,” he said quietly. “She thinks she made you go away.”
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