Chapter 3 - THE FIRST STORY PATRICIA CHANGED
Patricia’s first explanation lasted nineteen minutes.
She brought the magnets because Lily wanted to build something.
Then she said the magnets had already been in our house.
Then she said Daniel had bought them.
Then she said she was only moving them off a shelf.
Officer Carter wrote each version down.
Daniel became quieter every time his mother changed the story.
I wanted to scream at him.
Instead I stayed beside Lily.
Her medical team took her for treatment shortly afterward.
Daniel tried to follow.
I stopped him.
“Give me a minute.”
“Rachel, that’s my daughter too.”
“I know.”
My voice shook.
“But you walked into this room and accused me before asking where your mother was yesterday.”
His face changed.
“I panicked.”
“So did I.”
“I saw thirty-six magnets inside her.”
“So did I.”
He looked toward Patricia.
“I didn’t know Mom had been here that long.”
That sentence caught me.
“You didn’t know?”
“She said she stopped by.”
I stared.
“You knew she watched Lily.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“I knew she helped.”
“No. You knew she was alone with her for hours.”
“Rachel—”
“You still accused me.”
His anger returned defensively.
“Because every time something happens, you’re the one home.”
That hurt because it revealed something older than the hospital.
He had been keeping score too.
I stepped away.
Officer Carter asked Patricia where the magnets came from.
She finally said they belonged to a desktop magnetic sculpture she had ordered online weeks earlier.
“For myself.”
“Why bring them to Rachel’s house?”
Patricia’s mouth tightened.
“I don’t remember.”
She remembered enough to know my camera had supposedly been broken.
That was what I couldn’t release.
I asked:
“How did you know about the camera?”
Patricia sighed.
“Daniel told me.”
I turned.
Daniel looked confused.
“I did?”
“You said it wasn’t working when you were trying to check Lily one night.”
“That was two months ago.”
Patricia shrugged.
“So?”
The camera had been repaired three weeks earlier.
Daniel knew.
I knew.
Patricia apparently did not.
Which meant whatever she had done yesterday, she believed it would not be recorded.
That afternoon, the police asked whether they could preserve a copy of the footage.
I agreed.
They also asked us not to delete or alter anything from the home system.
Daniel agreed.
Patricia became angry.
“You’re letting police treat your mother like a criminal.”
Daniel looked at her.
“A container of magnets appeared next to my daughter while you were alone with her.”
“I told you I made a mistake.”
“A mistake is leaving a cup out.”
Patricia’s face sharpened.
“What do you want me to say?”
I answered.
“The truth.”
She looked at me with sudden hatred.
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And for the first time, I understood that Patricia was not only frightened of what we might discover.
She was angry that I was allowed to discover it.
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