Chapter 3 - THE FILE CALLED “SARAH”
At the hospital, Detective Melissa Grant asked whether I knew of any reason Marcus would describe me as mentally unstable.
I almost laughed.
“He started about two weeks after Noah was born.”
“How?”
“He’d tell people I was overwhelmed.”
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
Honest.
I was exhausted.
I cried.
I sometimes forgot whether I had eaten.
I stood in the kitchen at 3:00 a.m. feeding a newborn and wondering if I would ever sleep again.
But exhausted was not dangerous.
Crying was not incapacity.
Motherhood had not erased my ability to think.
Detective Grant nodded.
“Did he document these episodes?”
“I don’t know.”
They found out.
With proper legal process, investigators recovered a folder from Marcus’s laptop.
Name:
SARAH - CONCERNS
Inside:
Screenshots of texts where I said I was tired.
Photographs of dishes in the sink.
A video of me crying while Noah screamed with colic.
Notes.
Dates.
Descriptions.
Sarah forgot bottle on counter.
Sarah became emotional when Mom suggested formula.
Sarah refused assistance.
Then something worse.
Draft emails addressed to Noah’s pediatrician.
Never sent.
Yet.
One read:
I am increasingly concerned my wife may be experiencing severe postpartum instability and could attempt to leave with our child impulsively.
I stared at the screen.
They had not merely been reacting to me.
May you like
They had been constructing me.
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