One was a short request asking whether she could come immediately.
Another said the baby had been crying again.
Then there was a message my mother-in-law had sent asking whether my wife had slept.
The reply came several minutes later.
“I just need everyone to stop making me do this.”
My mother-in-law looked at me.
“I thought she meant motherhood.”
I stared at the screen.
“So did I.”
That was the first reversal.
The message wasn’t proof of some elaborate plan. It didn’t explain everything. But it showed that my wife had been communicating distress before the incident, and that her mother had come to the house because she was afraid something might happen.
The police wanted the phone preserved.
The hospital wanted our son observed.
And I suddenly understood that nobody was treating this as a marital argument anymore.
Still, there was one thing I couldn’t stop thinking about.
