Chapter 4 - The Mother She Was Building
By sunrise, I understood something worse than what had happened in the bathroom.
Linda had been building a version of me.
An unstable version.
A careless version.
A mother people would hesitate to believe.
I started remembering things I had dismissed during pregnancy.
My prenatal vitamins disappearing from the kitchen counter.
A burner left on after Linda made tea, then her asking Ryan whether I had become forgetful.
A broken wineglass on the nursery floor while I was seven months pregnant. Linda had cleaned it up and said, “Sweetheart, you really need to slow down.”
I hadn’t touched that glass.
Ryan sat across from me in the hotel living room.
“Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“I did.”
He looked up.
“I told you she moved things. I told you she came into the nursery without asking. I told you she made comments about me being emotional.”
“I thought you two didn’t get along.”
“Exactly.”
The word landed between us.
He looked away first.
Detective Harper arrived with a forensic technician named Caleb. They had examined the photo metadata.
“The fake note was photographed twelve days ago,” Harper said. “In your kitchen.”
Ryan frowned. “How do you know?”
“Reflection in the toaster. We can see part of the backsplash.”
My skin prickled.
Linda had photographed evidence she planned to use before she needed it.
Caleb opened a folder.
“We also found screenshots of text messages on her phone. They appear to be from Emma.”
He slid the printouts toward me.
I read the first one.
I CAN’T DO THIS. SOMETIMES I WISH SHE WOULD JUST STOP CRYING.
The second:
I UNDERSTAND WHY SOME MOTHERS SNAP.
My stomach turned.
“I never sent these.”
Ryan stared at the dates.
Then he whispered, “These were sent to Linda from your number.”
Detective Harper nodded.
“At 3:42 a.m. on nights when phone records show Emma’s device never left the house.”
Ryan looked at me.
I looked at the spare keycard on his laptop.
May you like
And suddenly we both remembered the same thing.
Linda had slept in our guest room on every one of those nights.
