My mother doesn't call this early unless something is wrong.
I pick up before the second ring, already sitting upright in bed, feet on the cold floor. "Mom?"
Her voice is steady. Too steady.
The steadiness of a woman controlling every syllable because if she lets one slip, the rest will follow. "Hey, baby."
I've heard this voice twice in my life.
Once when she told me Dad was arrested. The other when she told me Christine was dead.
"What happened?" My feet press harder into the floor, anchoring.
She takes a breath. "A man came to the house."
My body goes still. Not frozen. Locked tight, every muscle held in place by something older than thought.
"When?" I'm gripping the phone so tight the case creaks.
"Last night. Around nine." She pauses. "I didn't call because I didn't want to scare you, and then I couldn't sleep, and now it's morning and I can't not tell you."
I press my free palm flat on the mattress. "Who was he?"
"I don't know his name." Her voice thins, loses a layer of control. "White, mid-forties, heavyset. Short hair, cropped close. He knocked on the door and when I opened it, he smiled at me."
She stops. When she speaks again, her voice is thinner still.
"He said Dennis sent him. Said he had a message from my ex-husband."
Dennis.
My father's name.
The name I haven't heard spoken aloud in years because my mother and I refer to him as he, him, or your father, never Dennis, because the name belongs to a man who no longer exists to us.
A stranger used it on my mother's doorstep like a handshake.
I curl my toes against the floor. "What was the message?"
"He said Dennis misses his family. Misses his daughter." Another pause, longer. "He said your father talks about you all the time. Showed me a photo."
My lungs tighten. "A photo of what?"
"You. At your high school graduation." Her breath catches on the word. "Your father must have kept it."
High school graduation. Four years ago.
Me in a blue cap and gown standing next to my mother in the backyard, both of us smiling because the camera demanded it, even though the trial had ended a couple months before and neither of us had fully learned to smile for real again.
My father kept it. Showed it to this man. Shared my face, my age, my milestone with a stranger in a prison cell.
I press my forehead against my knee. "What else did he say?"
My mother's voice drops. "He said he'd stop by again. He said it like he was being friendly, Saylor. Like he was a neighbor bringing a casserole."
Friendly.
Polite. Smiling. Well-mannered. Harmless.