"Caller I.D."
Written by Katherine Tomlinson
Illustrated by Mark Satchwill
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| Illustration by Mark Satchwill |
Shannon Garrick had a love-hate relationship with her cell phone. When she’d been evicted from her last apartment, she’d left behind an unpaid electric bill, a delinquent gas bill and a cell phone bill that had rolled over three times before her provider finally cut her off.
Since then, her only form of communication with the outside world had been a cheap “pay as you go” phone she’d bought from CVS.
The phone’s reception was crap but at least she had a number she could give the Human Resources people when she applied for jobs and a contact number if Liam’s school needed to get in touch with her. She refilled the phone’s minutes with pre-paid cards, always 30 minutes at a time. The cards with more minutes were actually a better bargain but they cost more and she never seemed to have the extra cash on hand.
Having a “burner phone” was a relief in many ways because it meant she didn’t constantly have to talk to creditors.
It was exhausting talking to creditors. She hated having to explain her situation over and over and over to people who probably weren’t making much more than minimum wage themselves. They always suggested that if she was in such dire straits she should declare bankruptcy, but that cost money too.
And deep down, Shannon felt that if she declared bankruptcy, she’d be admitting that she’d hit rock bottom. And if she admitted that, she was afraid she would lose heart altogether. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if she surrendered to despair. She didn’t want her mother raising Liam.
It was bad enough that her mother now knew where she and Liam lived. The news of the hotel shooting had gone national and pictures of a wide-eyed Liam surrounded by cops had flashed all over the Internet as pundits waxed philosophical about gang-related violence and the problem of “motel children.”
Her mother had immediately contacted Dr. Drew to offer an interview and use his show as a platform for reaching out to Shannon and the grandson she’d never met.
