The tablet screen lit Eleanor’s face in cold blue light.
For the first time since I had stepped through the front door, my mother looked uncertain.
Onscreen, the nursery appeared exactly as it had less than an hour earlier: Leo crying in his crib, Sophia pacing beside him with a thermometer in one hand and an empty medicine bottle in the other.
The timestamp read 10:17 a.m.
Sophia’s voice came through the speaker.
“His fever is still one hundred four.
Audrey, please give me my phone.
I need to call the pediatrician.”
Audrey appeared in the doorway, holding the phone loosely between two fingers.
“Mom said no.”
“This isn’t about your mother.
He needs a doctor.”
“Everything in this house is about her.
You should have figured that out by now.”
The real Audrey stood three feet from the tablet, her face drained of color.
The recorded version of my sister slipped the phone into her pocket and blocked the nursery door.
Then Eleanor entered.
She was wearing the same silk robe she still had on.
“No doctor until she apologizes,” Eleanor said on the recording.
Sophia stared at her.
“Apologizes for what?”
“For speaking to me like a servant.
For questioning the way I run my son’s home.
For turning Lucas against his family.”
“Lucas bought this house for us.”
My mother’s recorded expression changed instantly.
She stepped closer to Sophia.
“Lucas does what I tell him.
When he comes home, he’ll believe me.
He always does.”
Sophia tried to pass her.
Audrey grabbed her wrist.
Sophia twisted free and reached for the doorknob.
Eleanor slapped her.
The blow sent Sophia sideways into the crib.
The camera shook as the wooden frame struck the wall.
Leo screamed.
In my living room, nobody spoke.
One of the military police officers moved closer to Sophia.
The medic examining Leo looked up sharply but continued working.
On the recording, Sophia slid to the floor, one hand over her eye.
“Please,” she whispered.
“At least take the baby yourselves.”
Eleanor leaned down until her face was inches from Sophia’s.
“You needed to learn respect.”
The video ended.
My mother recovered first.
“That proves nothing,” she said.
“She was trying to kidnap my grandson.
I stopped her from leaving until she calmed down.”
The CPS investigator, a woman named Marisol Grant, turned toward her slowly.
“You prevented a child with a documented high fever from receiving medical care?”
“I did not say that.”
“You said it on the recording.”
Eleanor pointed at the tablet.
