The photograph had been taken before the accident.
I stared at the image until the room blurred.
The detective quietly took the phone back.
“That photograph was timestamped,” she said. “It was taken before your daughter dropped the glass.”
I finally understood why my husband had looked at my phone instead of our daughter when I tried to call for help.
He wasn’t worried about strangers making the situation bigger.
He was worried that someone would see what had already been prepared.
The neighbors had destroyed that plan simply by coming outside.
Mr. Carter had not just called the police.
He had become a witness.
The people across the street had seen my daughter in my arms.
Someone had heard my husband say it was an accident.
Someone else had seen his mother holding the second bottle.
The story they had prepared inside that house could not survive once the outside world had witnessed what happened.
