Chapter 122

I stumble backwards, trip over my own feet, and flop down onto the bed. At least, blessedly, the venetian blinds snapped closed again, hiding away this room from the outside. And the outside from this room.

“Mommy…” Iris starts, bottom lip wobbling, tears in her eyes.

“It’s okay, honey. It’s okay. It’s just reporters. They won’t hurt you.” Even so, I tell her, “Stay right here in this room while I make sure all the other windows are closed, okay?”

Biting her bottom lip, she nods.

Leaving her safe in my bedroom, I begin my trek to fully secure the house. Fortunately, Garnar and I have always valued our privacy, so we made it a habit to close the blinds and curtains when evening comes. Since Garnar is only now lumbering his way into the kitchen, all of them are still closed.

When he sees me searching around, he stops. “What is it?”

“I don’t know, but there’s a bunch of news vans, reporters, and cameramen outside of our house,” I tell him. “Careful!”

He doesn’t take me seriously, scoffing as he heads to the front window. “You are as bad as the kids with their nightmares.” Grabbing the edge of the curtain, he pulls it back.

Immediately, from just outside the window, cameras begin flashing.

“What the fuck?!” he shouts as he closes the curtain again. Rubbing his eyes, he turns to me. “Call the police, damn it. They can’t be on our property like that.”

“Get Violet,” I told him. “Iris is in my room…”

Rarely do Garnar and I agree on anything, but this sudden harassment has a way of bringing us together.

As Garnar rushes upstairs, I head back into my bedroom. Iris is there, hiding in my bed with the bedsheet over her head.

Leaving her there for a moment, I grab my phone and head into the bathroom. I really don’t want her to hear me make this call.

After dialing emergency, my call is picked up rapidly. “What is your emergency?”

“Hi. Yes. Thank you. There are a bunch of news reporters and photographers outside of my house. I don’t know what’s going on, but they are trespassing onto my property. When we open the windows, they try to snap photos of inside. I have two young daughter. Please help…”

“You didn’t welcome them onto your property?” the person asks.

“Absolutely not,” I say. “They showed up in the middle of the night.”

“And what is your address, ma’am?” the person asks with cool detachment. That must come with the job.

I rattle off the address.

“And your name, ma’am? For the officers.”

“Esther Owens,” I say, “But this residence belongs to my ex-husband, Garnar Graham.”

There was aggressive typing on the other end of the call when I explained my situation and gave my address. Suddenly, there’s quiet.

“Did you say Esther Owens?”

“Yes… Is there a problem?”

“No, ma’am,” the person says. “I’m sending two police cars to your house to handle the situation, Ms. Owens. They should be there within ten minutes. In the meantime, please do not engage with the trespassers. Allow our policemen to do the work.”

“Okay… Thank you…”

The line goes quiet again.

“One last thing, Ms. Owens. You may wish to turn on the news this morning,” they say.

I don’t understand how that can possibly help.

“Would you like to stay on the line until the police arrive?” they ask.

“No.” I want to go turn on the television. “Thank you. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Ms. Owens.”

The call ends.

Coming out of the bathroom, I usher Iris out of bed. “Let’s go check in with your father, okay? He should be with Iris.”

We file out of the room and head into the living room. There Garnar stands behind the sofa where Violet sits. Both their eyes are glued to the television screen.

When I look, I can see why.

There is live footage from in front of our house. The house we are in right now. From this vantage point, we can see swarms of reporters and photographers on our lawn. Some are even circling around the house.

“Are the doors locked?” I ask.

“I’ll check,” Garnar says, turning away from me. He rushes toward the back of the house.

In a flash, the screen splits and suddenly the raunchy photograph Amber threatened me with is right there on the screen of nationally televised news.

“Is that… you?” Violet asks me.

Iris squints. “Is that Miles Hamilton?”

Iris doesn’t wait for a reply. She grabs the remote off the back of the couch.

“Iris, please,” I start, but I’m too late.

She turns off mute, and the voice of an anchorwoman blares through the television.

“While not confirmed who is in the photo here with Harbinger Reporter Esther Owens, there is some speculation. As I’m sure you can see, the resemblance to Representative Miles Hamilton is uncanny.”

“I don’t know, Susan,” says another reporter. “That could be the back of anyone’s head.”

“But it could be Miles Hamilton,” says a third person. “We need to wait for statements from Esther Owens and the Hamilton camp.”

“Our reporters are camped out outside of the Owens-Graham household,” says the first anchorwoman. “When she emerges, we can make our first attempt at a search for answers…”

Stepping forward, I take the remote from Iris and mute the TV.

“This is your fault…” Iris says, her voice shaking with a kind of betrayal. “You and Miles, you…”

“Iris, honey…”

“It’s your fault they are here! This is all your fault!” Tears well in her eyes. She’s so frightened. I want to hold her and tell her everything’s okay, but when I try to, she ducks out of reach. Instead, she goes to her sister, grabs Violet’s hand and says, “Let’s go upstairs, Vi. They won’t be able to see us up there.”

“But…” Violet starts but goes willingly with her sister.

I let them go, ashamed.

Garnar returns in time to see them hurry up the stairs.

“The doors are locked, but those fuckers are going through the trash,” Garnar says, furious. He checks the stairs again. The girls are both out of sight. In a whisper-yell, he condemns me, “If you could stop being a whore for five minutes… Esther! What the hell kind of life are you bringing down on our daughters?”

Just like that, I see the whole of my custody battle go up in smoke. If Garnar pushes this, I could lose the kids…

I wrap my arms around myself and look back at the TV. Through the news camera’s lens, we see the moment the police arrive. They push back the trespassers away from our lawn. They don’t go all that far, relocating to our sidewalk.

The police to a walk around the house before coming to the door. Even expecting the knock, when I hear it, I still jump out of my skin.

“You answer it,” Garnar says. “This is your mess. Clean it up.”

He’s not wrong, so I move to the door and welcome inside a police officer. Strangely, a second officer holds a bouquet of flowers.

“What’s this?” I ask them.

“A delivery truck was trapped in the fuss,” one of the policemen says. He sets the flowers down on the side table along the entryway.

“I don’t want any flowers,” I say.

“The delivery driver was just doing his job, ma’am.”

Nervously, I inch forward. There’s a card with the flowers. I pluck it and pull the note free.

The words I see make my entire body cold.

Don’t fuck with me. – Mr. George