Chapter 3
I thought I had misunderstood her.
“Get rid of you?”
Emily nodded.
My mother shook her head immediately.
“She is twisting everything.”
“Then give her the phone.”
“I don’t have it.”
One of the officers looked at Linda’s purse.
“May we check?”
“No.”
That answer came too quickly.
The officer remained calm.
“Mrs. Carter says her phone is missing. She says you took it. If you have it, returning it now would make this much simpler.”
Linda clutched her purse tighter.
“I said I don’t have it.”
Then Noah began crying again.
Emily instinctively reached for him.
I handed him back.
My son settled almost immediately against her chest.
That tiny moment broke me more than everything else.
Emily had been terrified.
Hungry.
Exhausted.
And still, Noah felt safest with her.
Yet my mother had spent weeks trying to convince me that Emily was the danger.
I looked at Linda.
“Who were you talking to?”
“No one.”
“Emily heard you.”
“She hears things wrong.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Making her sound crazy every time she says something you don’t like.”
Linda stared at me.
I finally understood the pattern.
For weeks, every concern Emily raised had been translated through my mother before I got home.
Emily was sensitive.
Emily was confused.
Emily was overwhelmed.
Emily imagined things.
And because Linda said everything calmly, I had accepted pieces of it.
I hated myself for that.
The officer asked Emily whether she wanted to file a report regarding the missing phone and hidden camera.
She looked at me.
I said, “Whatever you want.”
Linda laughed.
“Listen to yourself.”
I ignored her.
Emily nodded.
“Yes.”
Linda’s face changed.
“You would do this to Noah’s grandmother?”
Emily’s voice was quiet.
“You did this to Noah’s mother.”
Nobody spoke.
The officer asked Linda one more time for the phone.
Linda refused.
Then something began ringing.
A soft vibration.
Everyone looked around.
Linda stopped breathing.
The sound came from inside her purse.
I closed my eyes.
The officer held out his hand.
“Ma’am.”
Linda slowly opened the purse.
Emily’s phone was inside.
My mother tried to speak.
“I was holding it because—”
“Don’t.”
I couldn’t even look at her.
The officer returned the phone to Emily.
She unlocked it.
Her face tightened.
“My messages are gone.”
“All of them?” I asked.
“The ones with Daniel.”
I took the phone.
Our message thread had been almost completely deleted.
There were only a few recent texts.
Most were messages I had sent that afternoon.
Are you okay?
Need anything from the store?
Love you.
No answers.
I handed it back.
“Why delete our messages?”
Linda crossed her arms.
“I didn’t.”
Emily opened her photo folder.
She scrolled.
Then stopped.
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
She turned the screen toward me.
Several videos were missing.
“What was there?”
“Videos from the hospital.”
Linda looked away.
Emily kept searching.
“My voice notes too.”
“What voice notes?”
Her eyes met mine.
“I started recording her.”
My mother’s head snapped around.
“You what?”
Emily held the phone tighter.
“Three days ago.”
“You recorded me in my own home?”
“It’s our home,” I said.
Linda ignored me.
Emily’s voice shook.
“I thought I was losing my mind.”
That sentence cut through the room.
She looked at me.
“Every day she would tell me something happened differently than I remembered it. She’d move things and tell me I moved them. She’d wake Noah right after I got him to sleep, then tell you he had been crying because I ignored him.”
My stomach turned.
“What?”
“She would make a mess right before you came home.”
Linda scoffed.
“This is absurd.”
Emily kept talking.
“She put dishes in the sink.”
I remembered complaining once.
Not angrily.
Just stupidly.
I had walked in after twelve hours at work and said, “Wow, rough day?”
Emily had looked hurt.
I had thought she was tired.
Now I remembered my mother standing behind her.
Smiling.
Emily continued.
“She dumped laundry on the couch.”
Another memory hit me.
Linda saying, “I tried to help, but she doesn’t want anyone touching her things.”
Emily shook her head.
“I started recording conversations because I needed to know I wasn’t imagining it.”
I could barely breathe.
“Did you save any somewhere else?”
“I sent two to my sister.”
Linda’s face went completely still.
That was it.
That reaction told me everything.
Emily noticed.
“So you didn’t delete those.”
Linda snapped, “I didn’t delete anything.”
Emily opened a message to her sister.
There was an audio file.
She pressed play.
My mother’s voice filled the room.
“If you keep calling Daniel at work, he’s going to get tired of you.”
Then Emily’s voice.
“I only called him once.”
“You called him because Noah was crying.”
“He had a fever.”
“It was ninety-nine degrees.”
“He’s one month old. I was scared.”
“You’re always scared.”
The recording continued.
Emily said, “I want Daniel.”
My mother laughed.
“He’s working because someone in this house has to function.”
Emily’s voice became smaller.
“Please give me my phone.”
“No.”
“Linda.”
“You need to learn to handle things without running to my son.”
The audio ended.
I couldn’t speak.
Emily opened the second recording.
This one was worse.
My mother was shouting.
“You think having his baby makes you permanent?”
Emily answered, “What does that mean?”
“It means wives come and go.”
“Why are you saying this?”
“Because Daniel had a life before you.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You came in, took all his time, moved him away from us, and now you’ve given him a child so you think you’ve won.”
“I’m not competing with you.”
“That’s your mistake.”
The recording stopped.
Linda stared at the floor.
I looked at my mother and felt like I was seeing a stranger.
“Why?”
She finally looked up.
“You don’t understand what she did to this family.”
“She married me.”
“She changed you.”
“I grew up.”
“You abandoned us.”
“I live thirty minutes away.”
“You stopped Sunday dinners.”
“Because I work some Sundays.”
“You spent Christmas morning with her parents.”
“Because we spent Christmas Eve with you.”
“You named the baby Noah.”
I blinked.
“What?”
My mother’s eyes filled with furious tears.
“You knew I wanted Robert.”
Emily looked confused.
I suddenly remembered.
My father had been named Robert.
He died six years earlier.
My mother had mentioned once, before Noah was born, that it would be beautiful to name a grandson after him.
Emily and I chose Noah together.
I never imagined Linda cared this much.
“You did all this because of his name?”
“It’s not the name.”
“Then what?”
“It’s everything.”
She pointed at Emily.
“She gets everything.”
Emily stared at her.
“What do you think I took from you?”
“My son.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“I’m standing right here.”
“You don’t call.”
“I call every week.”
“You used to call every day.”
“I was twenty-five.”
“You used to need me.”
The last sentence was barely audible.
Suddenly, the room felt different.
Not safer.
Just clearer.
This was not about dirty dishes.
It was not about Emily being lazy.
It was not even about Noah.
My mother could not accept that my life no longer revolved around her.
And she had punished my wife for it.
The officer cleared his throat.
“We need to discuss the camera.”
Linda looked exhausted now.
“It was only there for two days.”
Emily whispered, “Three weeks.”
My mother’s eyes flashed.
“You don’t know that.”
Emily looked at me.
“I noticed it three weeks ago.”
My head snapped toward her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
My stomach sank.
“When?”
“The night you came home from that late meeting.”
I remembered.
Emily had been waiting in bed.
She said she thought something strange was on the shelf.
I had checked.
I saw the clock.
My mother had walked in behind me and laughed.
She told us it was a baby monitor she bought.
I had kissed Emily and said, “See? Mom’s trying to help.”
I closed my eyes.
“God.”
Emily touched my arm.
“I didn’t know either.”
“But you tried to tell me.”
“Yes.”
“And I dismissed you.”
“You were tired.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
Linda suddenly said, “Daniel, I am your mother.”
I turned toward her.
“That doesn’t make this less wrong.”
“I raised you.”
“And she is raising my son.”
My voice cracked.
“You made her afraid in her own house.”
“I was trying to show you the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That she can’t handle being a mother.”
Emily’s face went white.
I stepped toward Linda.
“You’re done.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“You’re done talking to my wife. You’re done holding Noah. You’re done coming into this house.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
Her lips trembled.
“You’ll regret this.”
“Maybe.”
“You have no idea what she’s hiding.”
Emily stiffened.
Linda saw it.
A slow smile appeared on her face.
My stomach tightened.
“What are you talking about?”
Linda looked at Emily.
For the first time all night, my wife looked afraid for a completely different reason.
“Emily?”
She said nothing.
My mother reached into her purse again.
The officer immediately stepped closer.
Linda slowly pulled out an envelope.
Not a phone.
Not another camera.
An envelope with my name written across the front.
“I was going to wait until tomorrow,” she said.
“Wait for what?”
She held it toward me.
“To show you why your perfect wife never wanted me near that bedroom.”
May you like
Emily whispered,
“Daniel, please don’t open that.”
