My husband nodded once.
“Yes.”
“What do they mean?”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“My mother said she was developing a treatment protocol.”
“For whom?”
He hesitated.
“For babies.”
The room seemed to contract around us.
“What kind of treatment?” the officer asked.
“I don’t know.”
I laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“You don’t know? You signed your initials beside the records.”
“She asked me to verify dates and measurements. That’s all.”
“And you never asked what she was measuring?”
He looked down.
That was an answer.
The officer closed the notebook halfway.
“Sir, I’m going to need you to explain every page that has your initials.”
My husband nodded.
His mother suddenly pushed herself away from the cabinet.
“He doesn’t need to explain anything.”
The officer immediately raised a hand.
“Stay where you are.”
She stopped.
For the first time, I saw her without the authority she had always carried inside our family. No perfectly controlled voice. No instructions. No ability to turn every disagreement into an accusation against me.
