Chapter 2 - The Eye of the Camera
The security footage was organized by date,
and I started from the day I left for Germany.
For the first twenty-four hours,
things seemed normal,
but by the second day,
the mask began to slip.
I watched my mother,
Eleanor,
walk into the kitchen.
She didn't look like a grandmother;
she looked like a looter.
She began packing the expensive steaks I had ordered into a cooler.
"She doesn't need this,"
I heard her voice say through the camera’s microphone.
"Maya is young,
she can recover on soup."
Then came Chloe,
my younger sister,
tossing Maya's vitamins into the trash.
"These are so expensive,"
Chloe laughed,
"maybe I can return them for store credit."
My blood turned to ice.
On the third day,
I saw the most heartbreaking scene.
Maya was limping into the kitchen,
clutching her stomach in obvious pain.
She asked my mother for help with the baby so she could sleep.
My mother didn't even look up from her phone.
"Raising a child is hard work,
Maya,"
Eleanor said coldly.
"Don't be so lazy."
I watched Maya cry quietly as she rocked Liam,
her body swaying from exhaustion.
On the fifth day,
Mark,
Chloe’s husband,
arrived.
He helped them load the rest of the groceries into their car.
They took everything—
the milk,
the fruit,
the high-grade baby formula.
They even took the new blankets I had bought for the nursery.
The final clip was from yesterday.
They were all standing by the door,
suitcases packed.
Maya was begging them not to leave her alone.
"I can't walk to the store,"
she sobbed,
"please just leave some bread."
My mother just smiled,
the same smile she used to give me when I was a child.
"David wants you to be independent,"
she lied.
"We’ll see you after the New Year."
They walked out,
locking the door behind them,
leaving a woman who couldn't stand and a newborn baby to rot.
I saved every clip,
uploading them to a cloud drive.
I sent a copy to my lawyer,
and then another to a contact I had in the precinct.
The evidence was undeniable.
May you like
This wasn't just a family dispute.
This was criminal neglect and grand larceny.
