Suzanne violated the spirit of the restraining order almost immediately by calling from unknown numbers. The first time Wendy answered, she heard silence, then sniffing, then her mother’s voice softened into the false intimacy she had used to reel Wendy back since adolescence.
“Sweetheart.”
Wendy hung up before the second sentence.
The next call came two hours later from another number. This time Suzanne moved quickly from honey to acid. “Do you know what you’re doing to this family? Mitchell has poisoned you. You are hormonal and vindictive and—”
Wendy ended that one too.
After the third unknown number, Mitchell installed an app that screened everything. “You don’t owe access to the person hurting you,” he said while configuring settings at the kitchen table with Paige asleep in a portable lounger beside him. “Not to prove maturity. Not to prove fairness.”
Relatives tried next.
Aunt Darlene texted first. your mother is heartbroken. be the bigger person.
Uncle Ross wrote, this feels extreme, kiddo. families fight.