Chapter 7 - WHY I NEEDED THE DOT
My father’s name was Wade.
I avoided saying it in therapy for months.
Not because I hated him.
Because I loved him.
That complicated the story.
People prefer childhood trauma with clear villains.
Wade loved me.
He also took me without telling my mother during a custody dispute.
Both.
He had been convinced my mother intended to move with me to another state.
She had mentioned a job.
No move scheduled.
He panicked.
Picked me up from school.
Drove.
Told me:
“We’re taking a trip.”
I was thrilled at first.
Hotel pool.
Fast food.
My father’s cousin had a dog.
Then I asked to call Mom.
“Tomorrow.”
Next day:
“Her phone’s busy.”
Then:
“She knows.”
I trusted him.
Why wouldn’t I?
By day six, adults around us started speaking quietly.
My father became tense.
We moved again.
That was when I understood something was wrong.
My mother found us through lawyers and police.
No dramatic raid.
My aunt eventually convinced Dad to return.
There were hearings.
Supervised visitation.
Then gradual repair.
My father remained in my life.
That mattered.
He apologized when I was nineteen.
Not well.
“I thought your mother was taking you.”
I said:
“So you took me.”
He cried.
“Yes.”
There.
The logic I later repeated.
I am afraid someone else will control access.
Therefore I control access first.
My mother reacted to those eleven days differently.
She became location-focused too.
When I was a teenager:
“Where are you?”
“Who’s driving?”
“Text when you arrive.”
Normal parental questions made intense by history.
I complied.
Why?
Because I knew what not knowing had done to her.
If I forgot to text, she panicked.
I learned that providing location was love.
That became the private rule I brought into marriage.
If Caleb loved me, why would he refuse to share?
If he understood my childhood, why would privacy matter more than my fear?
I never asked the reverse.
If I loved Caleb, why did his right not to be monitored matter less than my fear?
Hard.
When Ethan was born, the rule deepened.
A child out of sight became a child at risk.
Technology made it worse.
A blue dot existed.
Why would a parent choose not to use it?
Because capability and entitlement are different.
I did not understand that.
I also had professional reinforcement.
Compliance work rewards tracking.
Audit trails.
Access logs.
Exception reports.
If something goes wrong, you ask:
Who knew what, when?
I became excellent at preventing uncertainty in systems.
Then treated people like systems.
Caleb said once during marriage counseling:
“You don’t want trust. You want visibility.”
I was furious.
Now I think he was partly right.
Visibility felt safer than trust because trust permits surprise.
Trust says:
I do not know everything and I am still staying in relationship.
That terrified me.
The tracking dot let me borrow certainty.
It worked until the cost became Ethan’s body.
My therapist, Dr. Leah Owens, asked:
“What did the dot mean?”
“Location.”
“No.”
“Safety.”
“No.”
I became irritated.
“What answer do you want?”
“I don’t.”
I hated therapists.
Then:
“What did you feel when you saw Ethan at Caleb’s house?”
“Relief.”
“So the dot regulated you.”
I stared.
Not Ethan.
Me.
I had called it child safety.
The immediate emotional benefit happened in my nervous system.
That did not mean every tracking device is bad.
Families use location sharing consensually all the time.
Teenagers use it.
Spouses.
Kids.
The problem was not technology.
The problem was hidden authority.
I needed Ethan to carry something without his father knowing so I could feel calmer.
Then when Ethan’s arm began hurting, losing the tracker meant losing the calming mechanism and exposing my violation.
My fear had developed an interest in the secret surviving.
That is where protection became control.
Dr. Owens asked:
“Did you believe Caleb would abduct Ethan?”
I thought.
“No.”
That answer hurt.
“Was he dangerous?”
“No.”
“Had he ever failed to return Ethan?”
“No.”
“Then what were you protecting against?”
“The possibility.”
There.
Possibility.
The infinite category.
You can justify anything with a big enough possibility.
What if.
What if the phone dies?
What if there is an accident?
What if he changes plans?
What if someone takes him?
What if the judge is wrong?
What if.
A parent cannot eliminate possibility.
Trying can eliminate childhood instead.
That sentence came from Dr. Owens.
I argued.
“Isn’t safety the job?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“Safety is not certainty.”
I looked away.
She continued.
“Your job is to respond proportionally to actual risk while preserving Ethan’s development and relationships.”
“I know.”
She raised an eyebrow.
I laughed.
“Fine.”
Then:
“I’m learning.”
Better.
My father died the year after Ethan’s hospitalization.
Heart failure.
We had repaired enough that I visited him.
At the hospital, he asked:
“Did you hate me after what I did?”
I thought.
“Sometimes.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
Then:
“Do you understand me?”
Dangerous question.
“Yes.”
His eyes filled.
“Does that help?”
“No.”
He laughed weakly.
Good.
I continued.
“I understand you were terrified Mom would take me.”
“Yes.”
“You still used me to solve your fear.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“I did that to Ethan.”
My father looked at me.
I had not told him everything.
I did then.
Tracker.
Cast.
Hospital.
Custody.
He cried.
Not because I had become him.
That would be too simple.
He said:
“I’m sorry I taught you fear could make taking control look like love.”
There.
Generational truth.
I answered:
“You didn’t make my choices.”
Important.
“No.”
“I was thirty-six.”
“Yes.”
“You were responsible for what you did. I’m responsible for mine.”
My father nodded.
Then:
“I wish I had learned that earlier.”
“So do I.”
No redemption speech.
He died six weeks later.
I did not put a tracking device in his coffin.
That sounds like a dark joke.
May you like
It is.
Sometimes humor is how an old fear finally loses authority.
