Chapter 5: The Call She Wasn't Supposed to Receive
Cecelia set the phone on the table between us and we both looked at it.
It rang a third time.
"Let it go to voicemail," I said.
She nodded.
We waited.
The ringing stopped.
A few seconds passed.
Then the voicemail notification appeared.
She put it on speaker and we listened together.
My adoptive mother's voice filled the small kitchen.
*"I don't know who you are or where you found my son, but I'm going to say this once.
He is a minor.
He is confused.
Whatever story you've been telling him, it ends today.
If you attempt to contact him again, or if you encourage him to pursue any kind of legal action, I will make sure you regret it.
I have resources you don't.
I have lawyers you can't afford.
Think very carefully about what you want to do next."*
The message ended.
The silence afterward was its own kind of noise.
Cecelia looked at the phone.
Her expression was completely still.
"She found out I was here," I said.
"My father must have told her about the notebook."
"Or she went through your room," Cecelia said.
I thought about it.
Thought about Diane standing in my doorway at six in the morning, finding my bed empty, putting it together.
"She called it a threat," I said.
"She threatened you."
"She's always been good at that." Cecelia's voice was calm.
Too calm.
The calm of someone who has learned to stay level when they feel like falling.
"The first time she reached out to me, after your birth, she was very polite.
Very warm.
She said she and her husband wanted to provide the best possible future for my child.
She said it was a temporary arrangement.
She used all the right words."
"When did that change?"
"When I asked for visitation.
Six months after the transfer." She paused.
"She told me that if I pursued it, she would report me to child services for the living conditions I had been in during my pregnancy.
She had photographs.
She had kept them."
I stared at her.
"She threatened to take you to court for living in a shelter while you were pregnant?"
"She threatened to make sure I was permanently deemed unfit." Cecelia's hands were steady on the table.
"I was nineteen.
I didn't have a lawyer.
I didn't know what was real and what was a bluff."
"So you backed down."
"So I backed down." She looked at me directly.
"I have spent every year since then wondering if I was a coward."
"You were nineteen and she was using lawyers against you."
"I know." A pause.
"It still cost me something I can't get back."
I picked up the phone.
Played the voicemail again from the beginning.
This time I opened the voice memo app on my own phone and held it close to the speaker.
*"…I will make sure you regret it.
I have resources you don't.
I have lawyers you can't afford.
Think very carefully about what you want to do next."*
I saved the recording.
Named it with the date and time.
Cecelia watched me do it.
"You're thinking ahead," she said.
"She made a mistake calling you," I said.
"That voicemail is a threat.
On record.
On your phone." I looked up.
"I need to ask you something."
"Alright."
"Is there anyone else who knows what happened?
Anyone who was there when the original arrangement was made?
A caseworker, a lawyer, a witness?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"There was a woman," she said slowly.
"From the agency.
Her name was Ruth Halliday.
She processed the paperwork.
I always thought she seemed uncomfortable with how the Kendalls — " she paused.
"With how your adoptive parents handled things.
She left the agency about a year after your transfer."
"Do you know where she is now?"
"I tried to find her once.
About five years ago." She got up and went to the bookshelf.
Ran her finger along the spines until she found a plain binder, pulled it out, and set it on the table.
Inside were papers — letters, printed emails, handwritten notes.
A record she had built on her own, for years, with no one to help her and no guarantee it would ever matter.
She found a printed page near the back and slid it across to me.
Ruth Halliday.
A last known employer.
A city in Ohio.
"If she's still there," Cecelia said, "she saw everything.
She knows what the original agreement said.
And she might know what Diane changed."
I was already pulling out my phone.
Then the front door buzzed.
We both went still.
It buzzed again.
Longer this time.
Insistent.
Cecelia went to the intercom panel by the door.
"Who is it?" she said.
A man's voice came back.
Professional.
Flat.
*"This is a process delivery for a Ms.
Cecelia Williams.
I have documents requiring your signature."*
I looked at Cecelia.
She looked at me.
May you like
"She moves fast," Cecelia said quietly.
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