I had to work hard to keep my face calm.
“And what do you think?”
He picked at the seam of his shorts.
“I don’t know anymore.”
That answer broke something in me.
Parker had been in Dustin’s life since Dustin was three.
He taught him to ride a bicycle.
He sat in a folding chair through freezing Saturday morning soccer games.
He knew Dustin hated tomatoes but loved tomato sauce.
He could recognize which stuffed animal Dustin wanted by the way he described its ears.
When Dustin had pneumonia at five, Parker stayed awake beside his bed for nearly two nights.
When Dustin’s biological father formally relinquished parental involvement and moved overseas, Parker never once celebrated or treated it like a victory.
He simply became more present.
He attended parent-teacher conferences.
Helped with homework.
Built a science fair volcano that accidentally sprayed foam across our kitchen ceiling.
He had never demanded that Dustin call him Dad.
Dustin decided that himself.
As far as my son was concerned, Parker was his father.
Until someone decided to make him question it.
I put an arm around him.
“You haven’t done anything wrong.”
He leaned against me.
“I like Mason.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t take his truck. Grandma said I did, but it was under the couch.”
“I believe you.”
“I didn’t ruin the flowers either.”
“I believe you.”
That was when he began crying.
Quietly.
The kind of crying a child does when he has been holding everything in because someone taught him his feelings would cause trouble.
I held him until his breathing slowed.
Downstairs, I heard drawers opening.
Suitcase wheels rolled across hardwood.
Then Ellie’s voice floated up the stairs.
“She’s completely lost it.”
Alana responded, “Don’t worry. Parker will straighten this out.”
I nearly went downstairs.
Instead, I stayed beside Dustin.
There was nothing left to debate.
A few minutes later, my phone buzzed.
I expected Parker.
Instead, a message notification appeared from Ellie.
No text.
Just an audio file.
At first, I assumed she had intentionally sent me a recording of our argument.
Then another message appeared.
“Delete that. Wrong person.”
I stared at the screen.
Something about the speed of that second message made me stop.
I put in my earbuds and pressed play.
The recording began several minutes before I had entered the house.
Ellie had apparently been recording a voice message or some kind of video when I arrived and had never stopped it.
I heard Alana speaking sharply to Dustin.
“You’ve been told enough times. Go sit over there.”
Then Mason said something I couldn’t understand.
Dustin responded, “But I’m hungry.”
Alana answered, “Then eat what you were given.”
My stomach twisted.
Then came the sound of the front door.
My own voice.
The confrontation.
Everything.
I kept listening.
Eventually, the recording reached the moment Dustin and I went upstairs.
There was silence for several seconds.
Then Ellie spoke.
“Do you think she believed it?”
Alana answered.
“She reacted exactly the way we needed her to.”
I sat upright.
Ellie laughed softly.
“Good.”
A chair moved.
