Chapter 6 - “I SHOULD'VE DONE MORE.”
Of all the things she could have said, that was the sentence I was least prepared for.
"I should've done more."
Not, He's lying.
Not, This is all my fault.
Not, I did it.
Not, He did it.
Not even, I'm sorry.
She gave me something much harder.
An admission of failure without telling me the shape of the failure.
My husband reacted before I could.
"Oh, come on."
His voice was full of disgust.
He leaned forward again, but the officer's arm held him where he was.
His sister did not look at him.
That mattered.
She kept her eyes on me.
"I should've done more," she repeated, quieter.
The baby's cry pushed through the space between us.
I rocked gently.
My mind moved faster than my body.
Done more about what?
Stopped something?
Told me something?
Helped him?
Helped me?
Protected herself?
Her brother?
Our baby?
I refused to choose an answer.
Her sentence proved one thing.
She believed there was more she could have done.
That was all.
But even that was enough to shift the emotional weight.
My husband's accusation had been, You're trying to save yourself.
Her response was not a denial.
It also wasn't a confirmation.
She was admitting regret.
I needed the difference.
"What should you have done?" I asked.
Her face tightened.
My husband interrupted.
"Don't answer that."
The officer looked directly at him.
"Sir."
My husband turned on him.
"I'm talking to my wife."
"No," I said. "You're talking over your sister."
That stopped him.
For half a second.
His sister's thumb moved across the phone screen.
I watched carefully.
Not because I could see the content.
I couldn't.
But because action was fact.
She was navigating somewhere on her own unlocked phone.
My husband's phone remained under the driver's seat, still lit.
I glanced toward it again.
A message preview remained visible.
Still unreadable.
I thought about how strange it was that two glowing screens could hold so much power without showing me a single clear word.
People like to imagine evidence arrives dramatically.
A folder marked CONFIDENTIAL.
A recording played out loud.
A photograph everybody instantly understands.
Real information is often uglier.
Half-visible.
Out of angle.
Locked behind somebody's thumb.
Waiting for context.
My sister-in-law looked down at her phone as if whatever she was seeing hurt.
I couldn't know whether it did.
Her eyes were already wet.
Her expression already strained.
Still, she took a breath that shook on the way out.
My husband saw it.
"She's putting on a show," he said.
His sister closed her eyes briefly.
I looked at him.
"Stop telling me what her face means."
He stared at me.
Maybe that was the moment he understood something had changed.
Not solved.
Not exposed.
Changed.
I was no longer accepting his interpretation as the default.
It surprised me how much power existed in that small refusal.
For years, people inside families become translators for one another.
He didn't mean it like that.
She's just stressed.
That's how she talks.
You're taking it personally.
He was trying to protect you.
She doesn't handle pressure well.
Sometimes those explanations are kind.
Sometimes they're true.
Sometimes they are how unfairness survives.
Because once somebody else gets to define what happened, the person who was hurt has to argue not only with the behavior but with the explanation attached to it.
I didn't have enough facts to decide what my husband had done.
But I had enough to stop letting him narrate his sister.
"If she's lying," I said, "I'll hear it."
His mouth opened.
I continued.
"If she's telling the truth, I'll hear that too."
The officer's arm stayed between them.
My husband's chest rose and fell.
His fist had loosened slightly.
Not fully.
The sister-in-law kept holding the phone.
She looked at me like she wanted permission.
That almost made me angry.
Permission?
I was the one who had been left outside whatever this was.
I was holding a baby in a hot parking lot beside a shattered window while two siblings fought over information.
I shouldn't have needed to grant anyone courage.
But anger wouldn't help.
"Show me," I said.
She nodded once.
My husband said my name.
I didn't look at him.
That was deliberate.
A tiny act.
Maybe petty.
Maybe necessary.
For those few seconds, I needed my attention to belong to me.
His sister took one step.
Glass crunched beneath her shoe.
The officer adjusted automatically, keeping his body positioned to stop my husband from closing distance.
My husband pulled against his arm.
"Don't hand her that."
I heard fear now.
Or something close to it.
Again, interpretation.
But the words were facts.
Don't hand her that.
I looked at his sister.
She stopped after the first step.
Only one more between us.
Her phone was unlocked.
Her fingers trembled around it.
"What does it prove?" I asked.
She stared at me.
That question seemed to surprise everyone.
Maybe they expected me to grab the phone and decide everything instantly.
I wasn't going to.
A phone can prove messages exist.
It can prove somebody wrote something if authenticated.
It can show dates, contacts, photos, call records.
It cannot automatically explain motive.
It cannot make every statement on it true.
I didn't know what she planned to show me.
"I don't know what it proves," she said.
My husband laughed bitterly.
"Exactly."
His sister finally looked at him.
"But she should see it."
That was the first time she directly challenged him.
His body went rigid.
The officer pressed harder against his chest.
I looked at the phone.
Then at her.
"Why now?"
Her face crumpled slightly.
She recovered.
The answer didn't come.
Instead, she whispered the sentence again.
May you like
"I should've done more."
Then she took the second step.
