Mom turned to her immediately, softening her voice. “Nothing you need to stress about, sweetheart.”
That was when something inside me shifted—cold and precise. Not rage. Rage would have been warmer. This was sharper.
I walked past all three of them into the kitchen. Dad had left his phone on the counter beside the fruit bowl. He said my name once, low and warning, but I picked it up before he could stop me.
“Emily,” he said, louder now. “Give me the phone.”
I unlocked it—he had never changed the code from my birthday. My hands were steady now. Too steady.
“What are you doing?” Chloe asked.
I looked at my mother, then at the empty urn visible through the doorway. “I’m making sure none of you get to call this a family misunderstanding.”
My mother’s expression flickered. “Don’t be dramatic.”
I opened the contacts—Pastor Glenn, Aunt Teresa, Dad’s golf group chat, then the administrator board for the real estate company where he had spent twenty-five years building a reputation on being respectable, dependable, community-minded.
“They had no idea,” I said, my thumb hovering over the screen, “what I would do next.”
The first thing I did was turn on the camera.
