Chapter 2 - THE MESSAGES I NEVER SENT
“Lock the door.”
Aunt June reacted before Margaret could reach it.
She stepped in front of the entryway and turned the deadbolt.
Margaret stopped.
“You cannot imprison me.”
“No one is imprisoning you,” June said. “Give Claire her phone.”
Margaret smiled.
It was the smile she used when she wanted everyone else to feel unreasonable.
“After she assaulted me?”
“The plate didn’t touch you.”
“It could have.”
I held Lily and kept myself between Margaret and Emma.
“Then call whoever you think you need to call. But first give me my phone.”
Margaret slid it into her handbag instead.
That told me everything I needed to know about whether she wanted witnesses looking at it.
Rebecca was still holding the screenshots.
I asked her to send them to me.
Then remembered Margaret had my phone.
“Email them.”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Now.”
She did.
I looked closer over her shoulder.
The messages looked convincing at first.
My profile photo.
My name.
My usual short sentences.
But Margaret had made a mistake.
Several of the messages had supposedly been sent from a number ending in 1184.
I had not used that number in almost a year.
It belonged to an old phone line I had canceled after changing carriers.
“Where did you get these?”
Rebecca swallowed.
“Margaret.”
“When?”
“About six weeks ago.”
“And you believed her?”
Her eyes dropped.
“She said you didn’t want people knowing how hard things had gotten after Aaron died.”
The sound of my late husband’s name hurt more than I expected.
Aaron had been Margaret’s son.
That made Margaret my daughters’ paternal grandmother.
It also explained how she had been able to turn so much family history into a weapon.
“I never sent any of these.”
Margaret laughed.
“Of course you’d say that now.”
I looked at the others.
“Has anyone here ever received one directly from me?”
Silence.
Rebecca shook her head.
June said, “No.”
Another cousin muttered, “Margaret showed us screenshots.”
Exactly.
Screenshots could be manufactured.
Direct messages were harder to fake.
Emma tugged my sleeve with her left hand.
“Mom, can we go?”
The question snapped me back to what mattered.
I took the girls upstairs to rinse Emma’s hand under cool water while June remained downstairs with Margaret.
Emma winced when I gently dried her skin.
“How often does she make you do this?”
Emma stared at the towel.
“Not every day.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Her eyes filled again.
“Whenever people come over.”
“Why?”
“She says they need to see what you’re like.”
My pulse began to pound.
“What does that mean?”
“She takes pictures.”
I went still.
“What pictures?”
“Me cleaning. Lily crying. Sometimes my room after Grandma dumps things out.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“She dumps your things out?”
Emma nodded.
“Then she takes pictures and says you left us like that.”
That was the first real reward hidden inside the horror.
The pictures were not documenting neglect.
They were being staged.
I asked Emma if she knew where Margaret kept them.
“She uses her tablet.”
“What tablet?”
“The silver one.”
I knew exactly which one she meant.
It was not Margaret’s.
It was mine.
An old iPad I had given her temporarily after Aaron died so she could access family photos.
I had forgotten she still had it.
Downstairs, someone shouted.
I ran back with both girls.
Margaret was standing beside the counter.
June held Margaret’s handbag.
The contents had spilled across the marble island.
Lipstick.
Keys.
Receipts.
My phone.
And a thick white envelope.
Margaret reached for it.
June got there first.
Across the front, printed in dark blue letters, were four words.
PETITION FOR TEMPORARY GUARDIANSHIP.
Margaret stopped pretending to be offended.
May you like
She looked frightened.
📖 Margaret hadn’t merely been humiliating Emma; she had been building a guardianship case, and now I needed to know how far that plan had already gone. 👇
