Chapter 3: What James Sent
My husband set his phone on the counter and slid it toward me.
I picked it up.
It was a text thread.
James to my father.
The most recent message had been sent eleven minutes ago, while James was still in our driveway.
*She's losing it, Dad.
Completely unhinged.
She screamed at Mason in front of everyone.
I'm telling you, something is wrong with her.
You need to talk to her before this gets worse.*
I read it twice.
"Keep scrolling," my husband said.
I did.
The messages went back six weeks.
James had been building something.
Carefully, methodically, one text at a time.
Little things.
*She snapped at Mom again on the phone.* *She's been really cold to everyone lately.* *I'm worried about her mental state, honestly.* *She said something to Mason last time that really upset him.*
None of it had happened.
Not one word of it.
"He's been doing this for six weeks," I said.
"At least six weeks.
That's as far back as the thread goes."
I set the phone down.
My hands were steady, which surprised me.
"Why?" I said.
"Why would he do this?"
My husband pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.
"I've been thinking about that since I read it.
Do you remember what your father told you in March?
About the will?"
I looked up.
In March, my father had mentioned, quietly, over coffee, that he and my mother were updating their estate documents.
He hadn't said much.
Just that they were getting things in order.
I hadn't pushed.
It hadn't felt like the right moment.
"James knows," my husband said.
"I think he's known for a while.
And I think he's been making sure that when the time comes, your parents only remember one version of you."
The refrigerator hummed.
Outside, a car passed slowly.
"He's been poisoning them," I said.
"Yes."
I stood up and walked to the window.
The street was empty.
James's car was gone.
"How long do you think my parents have believed this?" I said.
"I don't know.
But your mother didn't look surprised tonight when she defended Mason.
She looked like she'd already decided who you were before she walked through the door."
That landed somewhere deep.
I thought about my mother's face when she pointed at me.
The speed of it.
How ready she'd been.
"She wasn't defending Mason," I said slowly.
"She was confirming what James already told her."
"Yes," my husband said.
"That's what I think too."
I turned from the window.
"I need to see the rest of those messages.
All of them.
Not just what's on your phone."
"I know.
But James sent that from his own number to your father's phone.
We can't access either of those."
"We don't need to." I picked up my own phone.
"My father reads every text out loud to my mother.
She's been in every one of those conversations.
And my mother tells her sister everything."
I found the contact.
My Aunt Ros.
My mother's older sister, who had been at every family gathering for fifty years and who had never once in her life kept a secret successfully.
I pressed call.
She picked up on the second ring.
May you like
"I was wondering when you'd call," she said.
And her voice was not warm.
