meet unsupervised.
Custody disputes.
Recovery programs.
Court arrangements.
Complicated families.
Children sat there waiting for parents who sometimes came.
Sometimes didn’t.
And the center was nowhere near Julian’s office.
It was nowhere near his gym either.
Grant Street was twenty minutes away in the opposite direction.
Charlie noticed my face.
“I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”
I stared down at Julian’s phone.
For twelve years, Julian had been the most reliable person I knew.
The man who came home at almost the same time.
Who called me at lunch.
Who went to the gym every Thursday.
Now I was standing on our porch wondering why his phone had been lying outside a family visitation center.
Charlie shifted awkwardly.
“I hope I didn’t cause trouble.”
I couldn’t answer.
Because I had been inside that building before.
When I was nineteen, I volunteered there for a college psychology course.
