“Maddie.”
The pounding came again.
“Open this door!”
Patricia.
Of course it was Patricia.
The dispatcher heard her.
“Do not open the door,” the dispatcher instructed.
“Wasn’t planning to.”
Mom hit the door again.
“Savannah, I know you’re in there.
You took things that don’t belong to you.”
Khloe’s lower lip trembled.
I crouched beside her chair.
“Look at me.
She is outside.
You are inside.
The door stays locked.”
Khloe nodded.
Patricia shouted my name.
I didn’t answer.
Then she made the mistake that would follow her for a long time.
She began explaining herself through the door.
Loudly.
“That box is mine.
The house is mine.
Savannah broke into my things, and if she thinks she’s going to use that child to steal from me—”
I glanced at my phone.
The emergency call was still connected.
Every word was being heard.
Savannah realized it at the same moment.
Her eyes widened.
Mom kept talking.
“She attacked me when I tried to take my property back.
Ask her.
She’s always been unstable.”
Savannah looked at me.
“I never touched her.”
“I know.”
“But people believe her.
They always believe her.”
That sentence hurt more than I expected.
Because she wasn’t talking about tonight.
She was talking about our entire childhood.
Patricia had always understood the power of getting her version out first.
At family dinners, whoever disappointed her became the story before they entered the room.
Savannah was oversensitive.
I was cold.
An aunt was ungrateful.
A cousin was jealous.
Mom never simply argued with people.
She built a jury.
Tonight, for once, the jury was listening before she knew it existed.
Red and blue light flashed across my curtains.
Patricia stopped pounding.
A few seconds later, voices sounded in the hallway.
I waited until an officer identified himself before opening the door.
