Chapter 4 - The Voice in the Cloud
That night, Andrew fell asleep within minutes, his heavy snores vibrating through the master bedroom. I lay awake in the guest room recliner—the only place I could prop my throbbing cast upright—with Toby asleep against my chest and Leo beside me in the portable bassinet.
Using my right thumb, I opened my laptop.
Nine years in the justice system teaches you a fundamental truth: *The law does not care about your feelings; it cares about contemporaneous documentation.*
I opened an encrypted folder and began creating an evidentiary log.
* *Entry 1: Nov 14, 05:48 AM – Fall caused by unaddressed safety hazard (unreplaced bulb requested on Oct 24, Nov 2, Nov 10).*
* *Entry 2: Nov 14, 06:15 AM – Refusal of emergency medical transport.*
* *Entry 3: Nov 14, 05:18 PM – Abandonment of parental duties; verbal declaration: 'Mothers don’t get sick days.'*
Then, I opened our joint bank account to download the monthly statement for my medical out-of-pocket tracking. That was when my thumb froze.
There was a recurring charge of $480 every Friday to *L’Auberge Bistro*—a boutique French restaurant forty miles outside Syracuse. There were jewelers' receipts from Cartier in Manhattan, coded under "Client Development."
Andrew had told me our budget was too tight for a part-time nanny or a house cleaner. He had insisted we couldn't afford $150 a week for my physical therapy copays.
May you like
Yet last Friday, while I was using coupons to buy store-brand formula, Andrew had dropped $1,200 on a diamond tennis bracelet that had never entered our home.
***
