Chapter 6: The Aunt in the Shadows
I read the message twice.
Max turned the phone over without a word.
But I had already seen it.
"Who is Aunt Ruth?" I said.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"My mother's sister."
"Have I met her?"
"Once.
At the wedding.
Briefly."
I thought back.
A tall woman with reading glasses on a chain.
She had looked at my dress and said, *very pretty*, in a tone that meant something else entirely.
"She's been talking to Anna," I said.
"About me."
"It looks that way."
"Max, how long has this been going on?
The two of them — discussing me, deciding things about me—"
"I don't know."
"That's not good enough."
He looked up.
"I know it isn't.
I'm sorry."
I stood up and walked to the window.
The street outside was dark and empty.
I could see our reflection in the glass — me standing, him at the table, the bassinet between us.
"Your mother didn't come up with this alone," I said.
"Someone encouraged her.
Someone told her that calling the pediatrician was a reasonable thing to do.
People don't just decide that on their own."
"You don't know that Ruth—"
"She texted you the moment you came home.
She knew you were here.
She's been waiting." I turned around.
"Anna didn't just overstep, Max.
She was being coached."
He didn't argue.
He picked up his phone and read the message again, and I watched his expression shift — from exhaustion into something harder.
"I'll call Ruth tomorrow," he said.
"I want to be there."
"Helen—"
"I want to be there when you call her.
I want her to know that I know."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
We didn't talk much after that.
We checked the baby, turned off the lights, and went to bed.
Max fell asleep quickly — the flight, the day, everything catching up with him.
I lay awake.
I thought about Anna upstairs in the guest room.
I thought about her calling Dr.
Reeves, choosing her words carefully, painting a picture of a woman unraveling.
I thought about how close she had come to making someone believe it.
And I thought about the notebook.
I had started it on day two, when Anna had rearranged my kitchen without asking and I couldn't find the bottle brush for an hour while the baby screamed.
I had written it down because I needed somewhere to put it.
I hadn't known it would matter.
But it had mattered.
It had mattered enormously.
In the morning, I got up before anyone else.
I made coffee.
I sat at the kitchen table with the notebook open in front of me, and I added one more entry.
*Day fourteen.
Max is home.
He knows about the pediatrician call.
Tomorrow we talk to Ruth.
I am not unstable.
I am not irrational.
I am a mother who paid attention and wrote things down.
That is all.
That was enough.*
I closed the notebook.
Upstairs, I heard Anna's door open.
Her footsteps moved to the bathroom.
Water ran.
Stopped.
Then her footsteps came to the top of the stairs and paused.
May you like
She was listening to see if we were awake.
I wrapped both hands around my coffee cup and waited.
