At My Dad’s 60th Birthday Party My 3-Year-Old

On Thursday afternoon, my mother called me from a payphone inside the Fulton County Jail.

She had been taken into custody that morning after the state prosecutor upgraded her charges to first-degree child endangerment and accessory after the fact, based on her statements in Mrs. Gable’s video and her subsequent attempt to file the fraudulent custody petition.

“Rebecca,” her voice sounded thin, dry, and incredibly old over the static of the prison line. “They won't let me have my heart medication. The guards... they’re very rude. They won't even bring me a clean cup for water.”

“The jail has a medical wing, Mother,” I said, sitting at my desk in the small study where I prepared my defense cases. “If you need your medication, you need to request it from the duty nurse. I can't help you with that.”

“You can tell them to let me out,” she whimpered, her voice dropping its haughty, superior tone for the first time in my life. “Tell the prosecutor that we’ll drop the custody petition. We’ll sign whatever you want. We’ll sell the house and give you the money from your father’s trust. Just... please, Rebecca, don't let them keep me in here.”

I looked at the framed photograph on my desk—the one of James, Lily, and me at the beach last summer, our faces bright and wind-blown, our eyes filled with a quiet, peaceful safety.

“I can't do that, Mother,” I said.

“Why?” she cried. “I’m your mother! I gave you life!”

“You gave me a childhood of fear, Mother,” I said, my voice dropping into a quiet, absolute finality. “And then you tried to give the same thing to my daughter. You stood by and watched Gerald hit her, and you smiled. You’ve spent forty years protecting a man’s violence because you liked the house he built for you. Now you’re going to find out what it’s like to live in a house you didn't choose.”

“Rebecca, please—”

I hung up the phone.