“It was last-minute.
The stylist had a cancellation, and Amber has an event this weekend.
You don’t understand how difficult it is to book him.”
The lawyer looked down at her notes.
“And that need was more urgent than supervising two young children while their mother underwent surgery?”
My mother stared at me.
“That is not what I said.”
I picked up my phone.
My hand was steady.
“It is exactly what you said.”
I pressed play on the recording.
My mother’s voice filled the kitchen.
Your sister needed us more.
No one moved.
The lawyer had advised me on the phone, before coming over, to preserve the call if my device had recorded it through the accessibility service I used for work notes.
It had.
I had listened only once to confirm the words were there.
Now my mother heard herself from the other side.
Her face went pale, but only for a moment.
Then anger rushed in to cover the fear.
“You recorded me without telling me?”
“The lawyer has already addressed the applicable rules,” I said.
“This is not a debate about the recording.”
“You were trying to trap me.”
“I was in a hospital bed asking where my children were.”
My father sat down heavily in the nearest chair.
Amber crossed her arms.
“Fine.
Mom said something harsh.
She was stressed.
That doesn’t make them dangerous.”
The lawyer removed one final page from the folder.
It was a printed image of Amber’s salon post.
The photograph showed Amber smiling between my parents.
My mother held a paper cup.
My father had one hand resting on the back of Amber’s chair.
Bright mirrors reflected all three of them beneath the salon lights.
The public timestamp appeared beneath the image.
The lawyer placed Margaret’s call log beside it.
The times overlapped.
While Margaret was calling me again and again, my parents had been posing for a photograph.
While Sophie cried into Oliver’s shoulder, my mother had been smiling at a camera.
While I lay unconscious, my father had been standing behind Amber’s salon chair as if there were nowhere else in the world he had promised to be.
Amber reached for the printout.
The lawyer placed her palm over it.
“Do not remove anything from the folder.”
My sister pulled her hand back.
“I deleted the post,” she said.
The lawyer’s expression did not change.
“Deleting a public post does not erase the saved copy or its metadata.”
That was the first moment Amber looked frightened.
My mother turned on her.
“Why would you post it?”
Amber blinked.
“How was I supposed to know Whitney would turn this into a court case?”
“I have not filed a court case,” I said.
