Phoebe Judge

Fannie Davis ran her numbers business for 30 years.

She died in 1992.

Brigette says she can still picture her mother, seated at their dining room table, working.

The money Fannie earned put Brigette through college.

It allowed her to buy a home of her own in Brooklyn.

She says she plays the numbers, now in the form of the legal lottery, almost every day.

She usually plays 3-1-3, the area code for Detroit.

But sometimes she plays 788, her mother's favorite.

Can you do an impression of what it was like when your mother on the phone, when she would pick up the phone to take a number, what she would say?

What was the interaction like?

Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me.

Nadia Wilson is our senior producer.

Katie Bishop is our supervising producer.

Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sijico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane.

This episode was originally mixed by Rob Byers.

Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti.

Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal.

You can see them at thisiscriminal.com, where you can also find information about the book that Bridgette Davis has written about her mother.

It's called The World According to Fannie Davis, My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers.

You can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter.