Free Antonia's Choice by Nancy Rue

hear her nodding. “I called Chris, like you said. He wasn’t very encouraging.” She said it as if the whole thing were Chris’s fault. “He said that the government won’t tell you what kind of case it really has. They can charge anybody—it’s not like the district attorney.”
    â€œWell, yeah,” I said. “Internet pornography is a federal crime.”
    â€œBut it isn’t Bobbi’s crime!”
    â€œI know, Mama,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure I knew anything at that point. “So you’ve been up all night worrying.”
    â€œNo, I’ve been up all night with Wyndham.”
    â€œHow’s she doing?”
    I could hear Mama muffling the phone with her hand. Her voice went even lower. “She’s either the most stubborn child I’ve ever seen, or those fundamentalists have completely brainwashed her. She will not budge from this absurd story.”
    â€œWyndham is being stubborn?” This was the girl who let her baby sister and brother slide pencils up her nose and teethe on her stereo equipment.
    â€œIf she would just tell the truth—tell them that she’s lied about her mother—they would let Bobbi go and we could start to get back to some kind of normal life around here.”
    â€œYou don’t think she lied about Sid.”
    â€œNo. They found that filthy stuff in
his
studio. But she didn’t have to drag her mother down, too. It’s all that obsession with Satan those fundamentalists have—”
    â€œWhat kind of church is it that she’s been going to?”
    â€œLutheran.”
    It was all I could do not to guffaw in her ear. “Mama, I don’t think the Lutherans are fanatics. I know you think anybody less liturgical than the Episcopalians is a Bible-thumping weirdo, but come on—”
    â€œThen you talk to her.”
    Ah. The hook. I went for the coffee pot again.
    â€œMama, I told you, I cannot come up there right now. My boss is on my back as it is—”
    â€œI don’t mean come up here. I want to send Wyndham down to you.
    I put the coffee pot down. No amount of caffeine was going to carry me where this conversation was going.
    â€œYou said you wanted Emil,” Mama said. “Him I can handle, and Techla, too. If you really want to help, you’ll take Wyndham before I say or do something I’m going to regret.”
    â€œWhat are you going to do, slide bamboo shoots under her fingernails?”
    â€œI am not joking with you, Antonia. If you don’t take her, I’m going to call Child Protective Services. I won’t have a lying, deceitful child in my house.”
    â€œShe’s your granddaughter!”
    â€œAnd Bobbi is my daughter.”
    I felt a chill. I had lived since the day I was born with the understanding that Bobbi could do no wrong in the eyes of the mother we shared, no matter how absurd her interpretation was. The time Bobbi was caught cheating on a test in fifth grade, Mama said Bobbi’s fragile nature couldn’t handle failure and she got her aprivate tutor. When in ninth grade Bobbi lied and said someone had stolen her jacket when in truth she’d left it in a movie theatre where she wasn’t supposed to be, Mama said Bobbi was too sensitive to bear Daddy’s punishments and took her to a psychiatrist. But this. This was over the edge, even for Bobbi-worshiping Mama. Wyndham was being expected to swallow far more than I ever had.
    â€œLook, Mama,” I said. “I know you don’t think Bobbi can handle the consequences emotionally, but this isn’t some high school prank—”
    â€œWhy should there
be
consequences, Antonia? She’s innocent. It’s Wyndham who’s going to bear consequences if she doesn’t—”
    â€œOkay, what about Stephanie?” I said. “She and Wyndham have always been close, haven’t they?” I was starting to pace