Chapter 3 - THE PRACTICE QUESTIONS
The police took Ryan and Margaret away for the assault on Mom while they sorted out everything else.
Daddy asked whether I yelled, slept too much, or forgot dinner.
Grandma told Emma that if she answered “correctly,” everyone would be happier.
“I said you make pancakes,” Emma whispered.
“What did Daddy say?”
“That wasn’t one of the answers.”
I cried in the bathroom where she couldn’t see me.
At 2:13 a.m., Mom knocked softly.
She had refused the hospital until the paramedics convinced her the cut on her head needed glue.
Now a white bandage crossed her temple.
She sat on the edge of my bed.
“I should have told you sooner.”
“Told me what?”
“Ryan asked me for your medical records last month.”
I stared at her.
“He said he was updating emergency information for Emma.”
“You gave them to him?”
“No. I told him to ask you.”
Then Margaret started asking whether I took pain pills or drank around Emma.
“I take ibuprofen.”
“I know.”
She opened her purse and handed me a small notebook.
Dates. Times. Names.
My mother had been keeping records.
“Why?”
“Because I stopped believing this was family drama.”
Entries showed Alan Price leaving Ryan’s office with a blue folder, Margaret arguing at Emma’s school, and Ryan visiting a safe-deposit box.
I looked up.
“You followed him?”
“I’m seventy, not dead.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Then she reached into her bag again.
“This fell out of the custody envelope before Margaret grabbed me.”
It was a photocopy of a bank transfer.
Twenty-eight thousand dollars.
From our joint savings account.
To Alan Price Legal Services.
Ryan had told me that money paid subcontractors.
I kept reading.
A handwritten note at the bottom said:
PHASE TWO AFTER EVALUATION.
“What evaluation?” I whispered.
Mom shook her head.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
May you like
A text appeared.
YOU SHOULD ASK WHAT RYAN PUT IN YOUR CAR.
