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charges?”
    â€œTrafficking in child pornography,” she said.
    Our silence then was so thick I could have wrapped my hands around it. Going into it was like forcing my words through a pillow.
    â€œChild pornography?” I said. “You mean they were checking out pictures on the Internet? That kind of thing?
Bobbi?”
    â€œMore than that,” Stephanie said. “The police found a whole professional photography setup and darkroom in their studio. And files, hundreds of them, of little children—”
    Her voice caught.
    â€œ
Their
children?” I said. “Their own children?”
    â€œNo. As far as the detective can tell—and she hasn’t done a full inventory of all the pictures—there aren’t any of Wyndham and the twins.”
    I found myself rocking back and forth. I got up and paced, jamming my hair behind my ears over and over.
    â€œThey arrested Bobbi, too?” I said. “Stephanie—there is no way Bobbi could’ve been involved in something like that. I know she can be a wimp with Sid, but good
grief!”
    â€œWyndham says Bobbi was in on it.”
    â€œWyndham?”
    â€œShe’s the one who called the police. She told them both of her parents had a pornography shop, and she led them right to it.”
    I stopped pacing and squeezed my eyes shut. I was having a hard time imagining my fifteen-year-old niece marching into a police station with that kind of news. I could barely picture her asking an officer for directions. It had always been my opinion that Wyndham was pathologically shy and needed to get out of the nursery where Bobbi had her indentured as a full-time nanny.
    There was a click and then Mama’s voice on the extension phone, minus the sobs but still wobbling at the edge of panic.
    â€œIt’s that fundamentalist church they let her go to!” she said.
    â€œWhat are you talking about, Mama?” I said.
    â€œWyndham’s been going to a church youth group with some friends,” Stephanie said. “Evidently they were with her when she called the police.”
    â€œThey’ve brainwashed her!” Mama cried.
    â€œBut they didn’t plant pornographic pictures in the studio!” I wasn’t sure I was making sense, but my mother was making even less than I was.
    â€œSid could have done this thing,” Stephanie said. “We’ve always thought he was a sleazeball—he’d do anything for money. But not Bobbi. I know she didn’t know a thing about it.”
    â€œWhere are the kids?” I said.
    â€œThey’re with Child Protective Services right now,” Steph said. “We should have them in about an hour.”
    â€œAnd they will be with their mother by tomorrow morning!” Mama said. “We’re getting a lawyer, and we’re going to straighten this mess out.”
    â€œCall me the minute you know something,” I said.
    â€œOkay.” Another sob caught in Stephanie’s throat. “I wish you were here, Toni. This is so awful.”
    â€œLet’s just take it one thing at a time. Mama, you hear that? Just try to get yourself calmed down so the children don’t freak out. You have to be strong for them.”
    â€œI will—I will—because I know this is a horrible mistake. They’ll never charge Bobbi with this.”
    â€œYou keep hanging onto that. Call me tomorrow.”
    After I hung up, I discovered I was shaking. I had just fallen into
my
family role—bolster everybody up in a crisis. But I was far from bolstered myself.

Three
    I DIDN’T SLEEP MUCH THAT NIGHT . All I could do was lie there and wonder for the five thousandth time in the past seventeen years, why Bobbi had ever married a—what had Stephanie called him?—“sleazeball” like Sid Vyne. And why we as a family had let her do it.
    In our own defense, we really didn’t think he was that much of a threat when Bobbi had