…”bank statements. He’s very worried about who you’re paying a hundred and twenty dollars a week.”
She said it like it was perfectly normal. Then she pulled something down from the top shelf of my closet, a small black box the size of a deck of cards, with a tiny light on the front. “Battery’s still good,” she said.
It was a camera. In my bedroom closet. Pointed at my bed.
The hundred and twenty dollars a week was my therapist. I started seeing her the month I moved, because of exactly this.
I didn’t yell. I took the camera out of her hands, pulled the battery, and said, “Mom, I need you to leave.” She laughed like I was kidding. I opened the door and held it open until she walked through it, still holding the casserole.
Then I called my dad. I hadn’t really talked to him in a year, because Mom always handled “family business.” I told him about the camera, and I asked what he’d found in my bank statements.
There was a long silence. “Sweetheart,” he said, “I’ve never seen your bank statements. I didn’t know you’d moved. Your mother told me you didn’t want to talk to me.”
He drove four hours that night. We sat in my kitchen until 2 a.m. and put it together. She’d been telling each of us a different story about the other for years, and whatever the man she hired found, he’d only ever reported to her.
My building manager changed my locks the next morning and reported the camera to the police. My dad is talking to a lawyer about a separation. My mom sends me long texts that I read with my therapist, and answer only when I’m ready.
The casserole is still in my freezer. My dad keeps saying we should throw it out. I keep it, though. It reminds me that the next time somebody shows up at my door, I get to decide whether it opens.
