Chapter 7 - The Camera Emily Never Mentioned
Emily started crying before she spoke.
Not loud crying.
Quiet, shaking tears that made me want to burn the whole room down.
“I didn’t want to tell you,” she said.
I turned to her gently. “Tell me what?”
She looked toward Teresa, then at my sisters.
“I put a camera in the kitchen.”
The room froze.
Teresa’s face emptied.
Brittany whispered, “What camera?”
Emily swallowed. “After the first time your mom called me a freeloader, I thought maybe I was being too sensitive. Then it kept happening. I started recording because I needed to know I wasn’t imagining it.”
My chest hurt.
She had been so alone she needed a camera to prove reality to herself.
“Where?” I asked.
Emily pointed weakly toward the top of the refrigerator.
A tiny black camera sat tucked beside a plant and a jar of wooden spoons.
Teresa stepped forward. “That is illegal.”
Emily flinched.
I moved between them. “Don’t.”
Teresa pointed at her. “She recorded us in our own home.”
“My home,” I said.
Kayla looked sick. Brittany looked furious. Lily looked like she wanted to disappear.
Emily pulled out her phone with trembling hands. “It backs up to the cloud.”
Brittany tried to laugh. “So what? We said some mean stuff. Big deal.”
Emily tapped the screen.
Her own voice came first, small and tired.
“Teresa, I need to sit down. My back is hurting.”
Then my mother’s voice.
“If you can lie down with my son, you can stand long enough to clean a pan.”
I closed my eyes.
Another clip.
Kayla laughing. “She waddles around like the queen of the apartment.”
Another.
Brittany: “Once the baby comes, Ethan’s money is gone. Mom’s right. She trapped him.”
Another.
Teresa, cold and clear.
“Keep pushing her. If she runs back to her people, Ethan will come back to us.”
Emily stopped the video.
The room was silent.
That was the twist.
They hadn’t just been cruel.
They had been trying to drive my pregnant wife out of our home before my son was born.
My mother had turned my sisters into an audience and Emily into an intruder, all because she was afraid my love for my wife would end her control over my wallet.
I turned toward Teresa.
She looked at me like she was waiting for the son she raised to appear.
The obedient one.
The tired one.
The one who always paid.
May you like
He was gone.
“Pack,” I said. “Right now.”
