Chapter 4 - ANNA HAD BEEN TRYING TO TELL MY BROTHER SOMETHING
Three days later, Anna asked me to come over.
Judith and Melissa were prohibited from contacting them while the immediate investigation continued.
The house felt unnaturally quiet.
Ruby slept in a portable bassinet beside the couch.
Anna sat with a pillow pressed carefully against her C-section incision.
Nathan made coffee.
Nobody drank it.
Anna finally said:
“Your mother has been telling Nathan I’m unstable.”
I looked at my brother.
He looked ashamed.
“For how long?”
Anna answered:
“Since before Ruby was born.”
Judith criticized everything.
The nursery temperature.
Anna’s birth plan.
Breastfeeding.
The pediatrician.
The fact that Anna wanted two weeks without houseguests after delivery.
Then Ruby arrived early by emergency C-section.
Anna was frightened.
Exhausted.
Emotional.
Normal things after a traumatic delivery.
Judith turned every one of them into evidence.
“She cries too much.”
“She checks Ruby’s breathing obsessively.”
“She won’t let anybody help.”
“She’s becoming possessive.”
Anna looked at Nathan.
“And sometimes you believed her.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
That mattered.
He did not defend himself.
Anna continued.
“The night before Claire came, your mom told me I needed to sleep downstairs so she and Melissa could ‘reset the nursery.’”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“She said I was hovering over the baby.”
“Did you agree?”
“No.”
“Then why were you downstairs?”
Anna looked embarrassed.
“Because Melissa gave me tea and told me to stop fighting everybody.”
I glanced at Nathan.
He looked alarmed.
“What was in the tea?”
Anna shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
We did not leap to conclusions.
The remaining tea was long gone.
No evidence supported poisoning.
But one fact remained.
Anna slept unusually deeply.
Her phone disappeared.
And while she slept, Judith and Melissa had Ruby alone upstairs.
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That deserved investigation without turning suspicion into certainty.
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