At the hallway.
He stepped forward.
His boot came down on her glasses.
Crunch.
I heard the sound through the laptop speakers.
A tiny sound.
Almost nothing.
It was somehow worse than the blow.
Because it wasn’t anger anymore.
It was indifference.
He stepped over my seventy-one-year-old mother and began searching her house.
Kitchen drawers.
Cabinets.
The pantry.
The freezer.
Then the camera caught him muttering something.
Vega increased the volume.
“Where did you put it, you stubborn old—”
The rest disappeared beneath the scrape of a drawer.
He searched for nearly seven minutes.
Then my mother moved.
Ryan turned.
For one terrifying second, I thought he would strike her again.
Instead, he dropped the bat.
He took out his phone.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
His voice changed completely.
Breathless.
Terrified.
Performative.
“My mother-in-law attacked me. I think she’s having some kind of psychotic episode.”
I stared at the screen.
