Chapter 10: The Mother’s Version
My mother’s formal interview lasted nearly four hours.
I was not in the room, but the recording was made available to me as the victim’s primary representative and as the officer who had secured the initial scene. I watched it alone in a secure viewing suite at the precinct after midnight, the screen casting a pale glow across the table.
She cried on cue. She spoke about the burden of caring for an aging parent. She described Grandpa’s “confusion” and “aggression.” She insisted the shed had been a temporary measure while they looked into proper facilities. When confronted with the bank records, she claimed the money had been used for his care. When shown the forged power of attorney, she went silent for a full thirty seconds before asking for her attorney again.
The most revealing moment came near the end. The detective asked why she had told Grandpa that I had abandoned him.
My mother’s face hardened in a way the tears could not soften.
“Because it was easier,” she said. “Peyton was always difficult. Always judging. If he believed she didn’t care, he stopped asking for her.”
I paused the recording there.
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The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. In the quiet of the suite I felt the old, familiar ache of being the child who had never been enough for her, followed almost immediately by the colder clarity that the woman on the screen no longer had any power to define me. She had called me worthless for years. Now the official record would show exactly who had been worthless when it mattered.
I turned off the monitor and walked out.
