Page 104 of The Gathered Fragments of Us
~Caden~
The calls started again the following morning while I was at work.
I was in the middle of reviewing a contract for new business with Lauren when my phone buzzed with an unknown number. The automated message was becoming depressingly familiar: "This is a call from Jessica Jensen at MCI-Framingham. This call is from a correctional facility and will be monitored and recorded. To accept this call, press 1. To decline this call, press 2 or hang up."
I declined and turned back to the documents in front of me.
"Again?" Lauren asked.
"Yeah. I have a call out to our family law attorney to discuss it. Really hoping it's something we can stop, but I don't know if we can until we have the next hearing in the custody process later this week."
Lauren and I had been going over this contract all morning and she had seen how frequent the calls came through.
We'd found a sort of peace, Lauren, and me. Even so, I wasn't all that surprised she had come in that morning and told me she is planning to take a break from working. She talked with her husband, and they are going to spend a year touring the US in an RV starting this Fall.
Honestly, it's probably for the best at this point. She agreed to stay while I find someone to replace her and agreed to train them. It's rare for someone to be willing to do that and I appreciated her offer. The mere thought of having to recruit and train someone at this stage felt exhausting.
My phone rang again. Decline.
Then again an hour after that. Decline.
Sitting at the table for breakfast the next morning, I was listening to Macy's story about a book report she had to write. She was complaining about how much effort it was to have to flip screens from her e-book to the paper she had to write—on her computer.
I looked at her and laughed, telling her about the 'olden days' when we did things with pencil and paper. She looked absolutely horrified. Getting up, she put her dishes in the sink and went to grab her stuff for school.
My phone rang again. Looking down, I saw it was from the correctional facility—again. I was done.
"I'm calling David again. I can't figure out why he hasn't called me back." I told Felicity over breakfast, after declining the call.
"Good," Felicity said simply. "This can't continue."
I stepped into my home office and dialed David's number.
"Caden," David answered, then coughed.
"You good?"
"Yeah, somehow I came down with a righteous cold and was down for the count yesterday."
"Oh man. I'm sorry. I wondered why you hadn't called me back."
"Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. Checked out for a bit. When the fever hit yesterday, everything pretty much flew out of my mind."
I sat down behind my desk, leaning my head on the back of my chair. "That's awful. Are you back to work now?"
"Yeah, but taking it a bit easy—working from home for a couple days. Everything okay?"
I sighed and told him about everything going on. "Jessica's been calling constantly from prison. Multiple times a day. We're not taking the calls."
"How many calls are we talking about?"
“Nine to me already, a few more to Felicity. It’s disruptive, and honestly it feels like harassment.”
David was quiet for a moment. "In custody cases involving incarcerated parents, courts can impose communication restrictions, especially when there are pending criminal charges. We could petition for supervised communication only, or request no direct contact until the custody hearing."
"What would you recommend?"
"Before we file anything, we need to know what Macy wants. This is about her relationship with her mother, and she's old enough now that the court will want to know her wishes."
