I told Jonah about it the next morning. He didn't laugh, even when I described the measuring tape. Instead, he asked whether I wanted him to come over that weekend and help check the camera system. I said yes. It wasn't that I needed him to protect me. I needed somebody who could sit in my kitchen without making me feel that my personal life had become an internet spectacle.
By then, the social media story had begun to mutate. Some people believed Minerva had been cruel and dishonest. Others believed I had used money and legal paperwork to bully a financially dependent woman. A few strangers sent me messages describing situations from their own lives and asking what to do. The temptation to respond to everyone was powerful, especially when somebody repeated a detail I knew was false, but Clara advised me to stop discussing the dispute publicly while police and legal issues remained open.
"Your one factual response was reasonable," she said. "You don't need forty follow-ups. Preserve what matters. Let the rest of the internet find a different subject."
I deleted the social media apps from my phone for a week. It felt less like a grand declaration than like shutting a window because mosquitoes kept coming in. When I was bored, I reached for the icons automatically and found empty spaces. That bothered me. I had spent so many months in a relationship where some new conflict appeared every few days that even my attention had begun expecting the next one.
On Monday, Minerva's mother called. Doris Martin had a calm voice that made you instinctively straighten your posture. She taught second grade for almost thirty years before retiring and had always treated me kindly, though we had never had a particularly close relationship. She sounded tired when I answered.
"Patrick, I need to understand what happened," she said. "Mimi told me you frightened her and had police remove her from her home. Then I heard something about a car and Landon coming to your house. I don't know what to believe anymore."
"I don't want to fight with you about your daughter," I said.
"I'm not asking you to. I'm asking whether we can meet in person."
We met at a small café near the library the next afternoon. I chose a public place because the last few days had made me appreciate witnesses and because I wanted the meeting to feel like a conversation, not another confrontation at home. Doris sat near the window wearing a blue cardigan and holding a mug she had barely touched. She stood when I arrived, then seemed uncertain whether to hug me. I shook her hand gently, and we sat down.