Chapter 2 - The Return and the Mask Falls
The silence in my locked bedroom was deafening, broken only by Zoey’s quiet, rhythmic hitches as her sob subsided. Her tiny hand clutched my shirt collar, her nose still slightly swollen, the reddish-purple mark on her left cheek burning into my retina like a brand. Every time I looked at her, a cold, unyielding rage rushed through my veins, replacing the years of meek tolerance I had mistakenly called 'family duty.'
Outside the door, Carol was pacing back and forth, her voice muffled as she wept hysterically into her phone. She was performing for Thomas, building her fortress of lies before I even had a chance to speak. Jackson, meanwhile, had gone back to his cartoon show on the tablet I had purchased for his birthday, his indifference to his sister’s pain a harrowing mirror of how his grandmother had raised him.
I didn't try to interrupt her phone call. Instead, I took pictures of Zoey’s face from three different angles, capturing the bruising and the bloodstains on her shirt. I saved the security camera footage from the living room camera—a camera I had installed six months ago to check on Zoey while I was working late at my cosmetics laboratory. Carol didn't know the camera was active.
When Thomas arrived home six hours earlier than expected—having taken an emergency flight back from Reno—he burst through the front door like a whirlwind of anger. He didn't ask how Zoey was. He walked straight into the master bedroom where I was packing Zoey’s small suitcase.
"Jade! What on earth is wrong with you?" he roared. "My mother is sitting in the living room in tears! Her blood pressure is through the roof, and her cheek is swollen! You slapped an elderly woman?"
"Did you ask your mother why her cheek was swollen, Thomas?" my voice was dangerously calm.
"She told me! She said Zoey tried to take food from Jackson's plate, and when she tried to discipline her lightly, you went crazy! She's your mother-in-law, Jade! How could you strip her medical coverage right before her surgery? That is downright cruel!"
I picked up my iPad and handed it to him. On the screen was the crystal-clear 4K recording from two hours ago.
In the video, Zoey was sitting quietly on the rug, drawing with crayons. Jackson was eating a plate of sausages that Carol had freshly fried. Zoey reached up, not for the sausage, but to offer Jackson a crayon. Carol walked over, snatched the entire sausage plate, shouted at Zoey, and delivered a heavy, open-handed smack across the two-year-old’s face. The force knocked Zoey off balance, slamming her head against the wooden coffee table base before she hit the floor, blood immediately spurting from her tiny nose.
Thomas stared at the screen, the color slowly draining from his face. "She... she shouldn't have hit her that hard..."
"'That hard'?" I stepped closer. "She hit a two-year-old girl so hard her nose bled, Thomas. And then she told me that girls are burdens, that Zoey is a glutton, and that Jackson is the only grandchild who matters."
"Jade, she’s old-fashioned... from a different generation..." Thomas tried to negotiate. "We can talk to her, make her apologize to Zoey—"
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"Apologize?" I laughed, a bitter sound. "Your mother doesn't pay a single dime in this house. This 3-bedroom luxury condo? In my name. The Mercedes in the garage? Paid by my company. Jackson’s $18,000-a-year private school tuition? My hard-earned money. And how does she repay me? By abusing my daughter."
I grabbed Zoey’s suitcase and her stroller. "I am leaving tonight. By tomorrow morning at 12:00 PM, I expect your mother and nephew to be out of my apartment. If they aren't gone, I will file a formal police report for child abuse against your mother using this video."
