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JAMIE STOOD ON HER mother’s front porch, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, struggling to keep her composure. It was difficult facing her mom again after so long. After everything that had happened.
After everything her mother had done to her.
But this wasn’t about how much she was struggling with it, or how she felt about it, or anything like that. This was about the safety of her family, the safety of the children. And she had to do this – she had to take the next step. She wasn’t here for herself. It was the only reason she had the courage to face her mother. The only reason she swallowed her anger about what her mother had done to her over a year ago and spoke to her again.
“Can I come in?” Jamie asked after her mother opened the door, looking surprised to see her.
“Isn’t there a restraining order in place?” her mother asked, glancing over her shoulder at the police cruiser in the driveway. “I swear, I wasn’t close to your home or your family.”
Jamie shook her head. “We are not here because I think you were.” That wasn’t exactly true, but this visit wasn’t about the restraining order or the fact that her mother might have broken it.
At least not yet. She didn’t know all the facts.
Jamie’s mother hesitated but finally nodded, stepping to the side. “You can come in, honey. You know you are always welcome here.”
Jamie pursed her lips together. She didn’t want her mother to tell her that she was welcome at her house. She didn’t want them to be on those terms. At least they were speaking. That was something – she had to find out information and it helped that they weren’t completely hostile toward each other. If it hadn’t been for her mother’s letter, Jamie might not have come here at all. It was only because her mother had tried to apologize that she felt she could reason with her at all.
Jamie looked around the tidy town house as she walked into the living room. The house dripped with her mother’s fine taste. It was a lot smaller than where she would usually live, but Jamie realized that her mother had probably blown through most of her funds on legal fees. Despite it being so close to Halloween, there were no decorations in the house. Her mother had always thought the holiday was childish.
Jamie had hated that growing up. Her friends had had houses decorated from top to bottom, really bringing the Halloween spirit alive.
But, today, Jamie was grateful. The Halloween décor everywhere made her nervous – anxious, even. It just felt so eerie, considering everything else that was going on. Here, in a completely neutral area, she could think straight.
At least, as straight as she could think around her mother.
“Coffee? Tea?” her mother offered.
Jamie shook her head. “No thank you. I don’t have much time.”
Her mother sat down in an armchair opposite her, and Jamie took a deep breath.
“I need to talk to you about something important.”
It was strange being in this house that Jamie didn’t know and have it feel almost like her childhood. Smells like Earl Grey tea and cinnamon, the smell that she had grown up with, and the couch she sat on was white leather, as they always were. She wrung her hands in her lap and looked at her mother, straight in the eyes.
“Someone is messing with me and my family again.”
“It’s not me,” her mother said quickly. “I promise, Jamie.”
Jamie nodded slowly. Somehow, despite everything her mother had done to her, Jamie believed her.
“What do you mean messing with you and your family?” Jamie’s mother added in a softer tone. She looked concerned. Jamie almost felt like it was sincere, but she wasn’t going to think about it too much. She still didn’t know if she could trust her mother and she was far from forgiveness yet.
Jamie told her mother about the photograph and the phone call, as well as the brick being thrown through her dining room window. She explained the events at the coffee shop earlier, when she had been on her way to the police station.
Her mother frowned, lips pressed together, thinking about it.
“Are you sure it’s not just a prankster?” she finally asked. “You know, Halloween is the season for that kind of thing.”
“No, Mom. It’s not a prankster.” Jamie’s response was blunt. She wasn’t going to try to make small talk or indulge her mother’s fantasies. Jamie wasn’t there to speculate; she wanted facts. It irritated her that her mother thought she was ignorant. Halloween might have been a month to scare and celebrate ghosts and things, but it wasn’t exactly a month to do something horrible things to people who didn’t deserve it. Why would a prankster spend so much time following Jamie around, trying to terrorize her?
“I don’t have the luxury of assuming anything other than a real threat,” she added tightly. “You made sure of that when you took my child.”
All warmth that had been left in the room drained away, and Jamie’s mother flinched.
“You know,” she said softly, looking down at the carpet. “I have never regretted anything so deeply in my life.”
When Jamie had received the letter, she had thought that she would be able to forgive her mother someday. But now, sitting across from the woman that had taken her child and put her through hell, not only during the time that Markie had been kidnapped, but for months afterwards, she realized that the day for forgiveness was very far off. It was a possibility that it would never come at all.
Her children were her life. She couldn’t forgive someone who would take one of them from her and put them in danger. And there was no way she was going to sit idly by when there was a chance someone else might try to do the same thing.
Jamie’s mother glanced up at her when Jamie didn’t respond to her attempt at another apology. Jamie felt numb. Her emotions had been switched off. She didn’t feel bad that her mother was clearly struggling with guilt. She didn’t even feel fear at this point.
All she felt was a serious determination to get to the bottom of this and have it over once and for all. She was tired of the emotional rollercoaster that had started when her child had been taken. And she was tired of it dragging on for so long.
“What can I say to make you believe me?” Jamie’s mother finally asked.
“I don’t think you’re behind this,” Jamie finally admitted.
Jamie’s mother looked up at her, surprised, her face a little elated. “You don’t?”
“No,” Jamie repeated. “But I do think you might be able to point me in the direction of the person who is.”
Her mother shook her head. “I don’t know if that’s something I can help you with. How am I supposed to—”
“Do you still keep in touch with Brianna?” Jamie asked, interrupting her mother.
Immediately, her mother was hesitant to answer. “Jamie, be careful. The case against her was opened and it was closed again. You can’t just throw around accusations. It’s dangerous to—”
“The case hasn’t been closed, actually,” Jamie said. At least, it hadn’t been when her mother had been let out on parole. Jamie didn’t know if it was still open, but it didn’t matter. “And throwing around accusations is not nearly as dangerous as letting a psychopath near my children again.”
Jamie’s mother knitted her brow and licked her lips, pushing her hands together between her knees.
“I haven’t spoken to her since I was released,” she finally admitted. “It was one of the conditions that she and I have no contact at all.”
“Do you have any of her details?”
“Don’t you?” Jamie’s mother asked.
Jamie narrowed her eyes. “Are you suggesting that I would be here if I knew how to contact her directly?” she asked. “I didn’t exactly come here for fun.”
Jamie’s mother probably didn’t know that Jamie and Alex had let Brianna go soon after they had gotten Markie back. After all, her mother had been arrested and was already in prison by then. And it wasn’t like the whole thing was so big it had ended up in the news. But still, it seemed commonsense to Jamie that she wouldn’t be at her mother’s house unless she absolutely had to be.
Finally, Jamie’s mother nodded. “I do have her contact information. And I will break my condition of parole if you need me to.”
Jamie looked at her mother without saying anything. Breaking her parole was serious. If it came out, she could go back to prison. But Jamie also knew that her mother was groveling. She was hoping to get back in Jamie’s good books. She wasn’t going to tell her mother that there was no way Jamie was allowing her back into her life, into her children’s lives. She didn’t want her mother to change her mind.
But, surely, the woman understood that Jamie was there to protect her children, not to make amends. And that she wasn’t asking her mother to help for the sake of redeeming her, but so that she could end this once and for all.
She was going to assume that her mother was clever enough to figure it out for herself.
She nodded and stood. “I need you to,” she said.
“I have it written down somewhere...” Jamie’s mother said and started toward the bedroom. But Jamie shook her head.
“We have to go to her place,” she said.
“A visit? Are you serious?”
“You just said that you would break the conditions of parole.”
“I just thought you wanted a phone number.”
Jamie didn’t say anything. Getting a phone number from her mother wouldn’t be breaking any conditions on her mother’s part. It felt like an easy way out. But Jamie wasn’t going to allow that. She needed her mother with her, so that her former nanny could feel the pressure. She wanted to go to her and see her face to face.
“We’re going,” Jamie said.
“Right now?” Jamie’s mother asked, looking a little flustered.
“Right now,” Jamie said. “I’m sure it won’t take long. I don’t intend for it to.”
“What are you going to do?” She sounded a little uncertain, maybe even a little afraid. Good. Jamie didn’t want anyone to think that they could fuck with her anymore. Not even her mother, who wasn’t as involved as she had been before. She wanted the whole world to know that her children were her priority, and the fierce mama bear had woken up.
“What I have to do,” Jamie finally said. “I am going to talk to the officer in the police cruiser for a moment. Wait here, I’ll be back.”
Without waiting for her mother to answer, Jamie turned around and walked to the front door. She didn’t want to argue about the next step, about how she planned to fix this mess. She wanted to do what needed to be done and get it over with.
This was where she was drawing the line. As she had said to her mother, she was going to do what she needed to do to end this.
