Chapter 10
Grandma’s words went everywhere.
He misses his mother.
The clip played on the evening news.
People sent cards.
Flowers.
Stuffed animals.
Some were kind.
Some felt strange.
I did not like strangers knowing my name.
Dad asked the news stations to stop showing my face.
Some listened.
Some blurred it.
Some did not.
That made him angry in a new way.
A careful way.
He hired a lawyer named Ms. Bennett to protect my privacy.
She had silver hair and glasses that made her look strict.
I liked her immediately.
She said, “Mason is not evidence. He is a child.”
Dad cried when she said that.
Ms. Bennett also helped Dad file for divorce from Karen.
Karen refused to sign anything.
She said she still loved him.
She said he was being manipulated by Grandma.
She said I needed a mother.
Dad read her statement once.
Then threw it in the trash.
“You had a mother,” he told me. “You still do. Her name is Lily.”
After that, we started making a memory box for Mom.
Not hidden.
Not secret.
A real one.
Blue phone.
Copies of photos.
A ribbon from her hair.
A recipe card in her handwriting.
A small bottle of her vanilla lotion.
And a drawing I made of the moon.
Our night lamp.
Dad added one of his letters to her.
Grandma added a picture from Mom’s college graduation.
The box sat on the living room shelf.
Whenever I wanted, I could open it.
Nobody called it unhealthy.
Nobody told me to move on.
That helped more than I could explain.
Vince took a plea deal before Karen’s trial.
He admitted everything he knew.
In court, he looked smaller than I remembered.
No baseball cap.
No peppermint gum.
Just a man who had followed Karen because he liked money and chaos.
He said Karen had planned to marry Dad before Mom died.
He said she believed she deserved him.
He said she stole medication, entered the hospital, and came out smiling.
Dad left the courtroom when he heard that.
I stayed with Grandma in the hallway.
“Why did he help her?” I asked.
Grandma looked tired.
“Some people do terrible things because someone terrible makes them feel important.”
“Did Karen make him bad?”
“No,” Grandma said. “He chose.”
That word mattered.
Chose.
Karen chose.
Vince chose.
Dad chose too.
At first, he chose wrong by not seeing.
Now he chose me every day.
The trial began in winter.
I did not attend the first days.
Adults talked about evidence.
Medicine.
Hospital records.
Phone data.
Money.
Stolen scrubs.
The balcony.
The pink sedative.
The storage locker.
Mom’s recording.
Karen sat at the defense table in neat dresses and soft sweaters.
She looked like a teacher.
Or a church lady.
Or someone who would bring soup to a sick neighbor.
That scared me.
Bad people did not always look like monsters.
Sometimes they looked like stepmothers smiling through glass.
When I finally testified by recorded interview, Karen was not allowed to question me directly.
Her lawyer tried to say I was confused.
The prosecutor asked one question that stayed with me.
“Mason, how did you feel on the balcony?”
On the video, I watched myself look down.
Then I said, “Like I was disappearing.”
Dad sobbed in the courtroom when that played.
Grandma held his hand.
Karen looked bored.
That made the jury watch her.
I think it hurt her more than tears would have.
Then came the biggest surprise.
A nurse named Angela testified.
She had been working the night Mom died.
She said she saw Karen leave Mom’s room.
She reported it.
The supervisor ignored her.
But Angela kept a copy of the incident note because Mom’s death bothered her.
Karen’s lawyer attacked her memory.
Angela did not break.
“I remember because Mrs. Lily Cole grabbed my wrist before she died,” she said.
Dad leaned forward.
The prosecutor asked, “What did Lily say?”
Angela’s eyes filled.
“She said, ‘My son has a blue phone. Call Ruth.’”
Grandma covered her mouth.
Dad cried openly.
Karen finally reacted.
Her face tightened with rage.
Because Mom had spoken.
Again.
After all Karen did, Mom kept speaking.
Then the prosecutor played a jail call between Karen and Melissa.
Karen’s voice filled the room.
“They think a dead woman and a little boy can beat me.”
The prosecutor paused it.
Then looked at the jury.
May you like
Karen stared straight ahead.
For the first time, she looked afraid.
