Chapter 7
My father's apartment smelled like coffee that had been on the burner too long and the lemon cleaner his building used in the hallways. The afternoon light came in sideways through the blinds and cut across the kitchen table where my phone sat face-up. I hadn't wanted to touch it. My daughter was napping on his couch, curled around a throw pillow that was bigger than she was, breathing in that deep toddler way.
My dad didn't push. He set a glass of water next to my phone and sat down opposite me and said, "Whenever you're ready."
I was ready because I was tired of not knowing. I picked up the phone and the screen was still cracked at the corner from where it had hit the marble. My thumb hesitated over the passcode and then I typed it in.
The first thing I saw was the message thread with him. I scrolled up past the last two weeks, past the grocery lists and the appointment reminders. That was his way. It wasn't all yelling. That was what made it hard to explain to anyone.
There were texts from March. Don't be like that. You know I love you more than anything. Then twelve hours later, Shut up and listen to me for once. Same contact. Same day. I stared at it and my hand started to shake a little and I set the phone down flat on the table so my dad could see.
He leaned in. He didn't say anything at first. He just read.
I played the voicemails next. I hadn't deleted them because I never deleted anything from him, thinking maybe I'd need to remember the good ones. The first was from April, his voice low and calm. "Babe, I'm sorry about last night. Let me make it up to you. I'll get your favorite from the diner." The next one was from two days later, same calm voice gone sharp at the end. "Stay back from my office. I told you not to go in there." The exact words. Stay back. Shut up. They weren't just what he'd said in the penthouse. They were a pattern. He'd been drawing that line for months and I'd been stepping around it without realizing I was allowed to name it.
"That's his voice," my dad said quietly. "Both of those."
I nodded. My throat felt tight. I kept scrolling and found the photo thread where we'd sent each other pictures of the apartment when we first moved in. There was a picture from last year of the entryway, the dark wood double door with the silver and black lock. On the little shelf to the side sat a spare key, the one for the deadbolt, tucked into a ceramic dish. I remembered him saying he liked having it there for emergencies.
Then there was a text from him from last month that I hadn't really registered at the time. Moved spare key. Don't need anyone letting themselves in. Changed code too. Safer.
I hadn't asked him to. I hadn't even known the code had been changed until my dad couldn't get in. I showed my dad that text and his mouth tightened.
"When did you notice the code changed?" he asked.
"I didn't," I said. "I thought I misremembered. I didn't think he'd —" I stopped. I didn't need to finish.
My dad reached across and put his hand over mine for a second. "You backed this up yet?"
I shook my head.
He got up and came back with his tablet and his reading glasses. He didn't take my phone from me. He talked me through it right there at that kitchen table while my daughter slept. We turned on the cloud backup and waited for the little wheel to spin. I watched the bar fill, photos, messages, voicemails, all of it lifting off the phone. When it finished, he showed me how to share the folder.
"You send it to me," he said. "So there's two copies. Not just on your phone."
I typed in his email with my thumb and hit share. A second later his tablet chimed. He opened it and there it was, the whole thread, the voicemails, the photo of the lock with the spare key that used to be there.
"Now it's not just here," he said, tapping my phone, then his tablet. "It's there too."
My phone buzzed in my hand and we both flinched.
It was him. A new message. I read it out loud before I could think not to. "I'm so sorry. I was out of line. I love you and the girls more than anything. Please come home so we can talk. You don't need to do this. Come home."
My dad looked at me. He didn't grab the phone.
"He wants me to come back," I said. My voice sounded small.
"He does," my dad said.
I stared at the message. The apology was right there, soft like the ones from March and April, and right under it was the demand. Come home. The same pattern, one screen, two tones. I felt my daughter shift on the couch behind me and make a little sigh in her sleep.
I didn't reply. I locked the phone and slid it toward my dad's tablet, where the backup already sat. My hands were steadier now.
"I won't go alone," I said. "I'm not going alone."
May you like
My dad nodded once. "You won't."
The tablet screen stayed lit with the shared folder open, and my phone stayed dark next to it, and for the first time that week I felt like something was actually saved.
