Chapter 16 - No More Private Rooms
I was already reaching for my car keys when Emily said, "Don't come here unless I ask you to. I need to handle this at work."
I stopped. "Okay. What do you need?"
"Call the officer who took my report. Tell her where Mom is. I'm going to have security remove her."
So I made the call. Emily later told me what happened. Mom had walked into the lobby of the landscape firm, waved the green notebook at the receptionist, and demanded to see Emily's boss.
"This woman wrote that she wanted me gone," Mom announced to two waiting clients. "Would you hire somebody like that?"
Emily's manager, Maya, stepped out of a conference room. "You need to leave the building. Now."
"I'm her mother-in-law."
"That doesn't give you permission to disrupt our office."
"Read what she wrote about me."
"I won't read another person's private journal," Maya said.
Emily came around the corner just as security arrived. She said her hands were shaking, but her voice was steady.
"That's mine, Marianne. You took it from my bedroom."
Mom smiled at the receptionist. "See how she speaks to me?"
"Give it back," Emily repeated.
Mom dropped it onto the tile as though it were dirty. A few pages bent under the cover. When Emily crouched to pick it up, Mom said, "Daniel will come to his senses. Men always do."
"Whatever Daniel does," Emily said, "you don't get to touch me again."
Security escorted Mom outside. The office preserved its camera footage, and Maya helped Emily write down the names of witnesses. Nobody told her to forgive a customer who had disrupted the workplace. Nobody told her she'd embarrassed the family.
I met Emily in the parking lot after her shift because she asked me to. She held the notebook against her chest.
"She read a sentence I wrote when I was scared," Emily said. "She thought shame would make me quiet again."
"Did it?"
Emily shook her head. "No. But I'm tired of being brave at work and scared at home."
Being brave shouldn't have been her job in the first place.
May you like
Three days later, a certified envelope arrived at her apartment. Inside was a letter from Mom's attorney demanding that Emily retract her allegations, apologize publicly, and stop "defaming" the family.
At the bottom, in Mom's handwriting, were five words: You can still end this.
