…”she says you can keep the phone. I’ve already told the police you took my son.”
My dad read it and went white. “She means your grandma,” he said quietly. “Your mom’s mom. She’s the one who’s been hiding the phone in your freezer and charging it every week. She’s been helping us for two years.”
I didn’t even know my grandma knew where my dad lived.
I thought he’d panic. Instead, he paid for our pancakes, called his lawyer on speaker, and said, “We’re doing this the right way.” His lawyer, a woman named Ms. Brandt, told him to drive straight to the police station in my town and to let me do the talking.
So we walked in together. My mom was already there, at the front desk, with her manila folder. Inside it was a protective order she’d gotten three years ago, saying my dad was dangerous. The officer read it, then read the date, then looked at my dad.
“Sir, this expired two years ago,” he said. Then he turned to me. “Son, are you here because you want to be?”
I said yes. I told him about my phone in her nightstand, the router, the two years of birthday texts I never got. My dad had saved every one. He showed the officer his phone. Seven hundred and twelve messages, all unanswered.
It took four months in family court. A guardian ad litem, a woman who talked to me alone three times, asked what I wanted. I told her I wanted to stop being protected and start being allowed to have a dad.
I live with my dad now. I see my mom every other weekend, with a counselor at first and now on our own, and she’s in therapy. My grandma comes over for dinner every Thursday at 3:15, exactly, because she says it’s her favorite time of the week.
Last month I got my learner’s permit. My dad let me drive the gray Honda home from the DMV. Neither of us said anything for a while. Then he said, “Two years I sat behind that school. Worth every minute.”
