In the recording:
Officer Kate glared at my mother across the sterile interrogation table.
“Mrs. Mitchell,” she began, voice tight with barely controlled rage, “DNA confirms you’re Emma’s biblogical mother. What kind of monster beats their own child to the brink of death?”
My mother just laughed–that same hollow.
Officer Kate slammed her palm against the metal table.
“You don’t deserve to call yourself a mother!” she shouted. “If you didn’t want her, there are options–adoption, foster care–anything but this systematic torture! What the hell is wrong with you?”
Something in my mother’s face shifted. For a moment, she looked almost… broken.
“You’re right,” she whispered.
“God knows I’ve failed as a mother. That child… she’d have been better off never drawing breath.”
Then, with practiced precision–the same move I’d seen her pull on my grandparents, on Adam, on everyone–she beckoned Officer Kate closer.
I knew what was coming next.
My mother took out her phone, tapped the screen a few times, and held it up.
I watched as Officer Kate’s expression transformed–first confusion, then shock, her pupils dilating as her mouth fell slightly open.
When the video ended, the room went silent. So silent I could hear the faint buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead.
After what felt like forever, Officer Kate stepped forward and unlocked my mother’s handcuffs.
“You’re free to go, Mrs. Mitchell. There will be no charges filed.”
When I saw this scene, instead of being shocked or going into a hysterical fit, I was surprisingly calm.
When Officer Kate visited me a week later, she couldn’t even look me in the eye. Her shoulders slumped, her earlier righteous confidence completely
gone.
I just smiled weakly. “It’s okay. I get it.”
And I did. This outcome was as predictable as the changing seasons.
A month later, my body had mostly healed.
I was discharged with a bottle of painkillers and a social worker’s card I knew would be useless.
Walking through the front door of our house, I found my parents sitting on sofa. Dad was smiling, his hand gently caressing Mom’s stomach.
My mother didn’t even acknowledge my existence.
As I stood there, my gaze fell on her slightly swollen belly, and reality clicked into place.
“Mom, are you pregnant?”
Her eyes flicked toward me, cold as arctic ice. “Get out!”
Then she returned to staring blankly at her own stomach, as if I’d suddenly become invisible.
12:49
Burnt Beauty, Family Beasts
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Chapter 7
Dad shot me a warning glare, his jaw tight.
“Keep your shit together,” he growled. “If you so much as breathe wrong around your unborn sister, I’ll make what your mother did look like a spa
treatment.”
He immediately returned to doting on Mom, the picture perfect husband.
Yet there wasn’t a hint of joy on my mother’s face.
After watching this twisted scene for a minute, I couldn’t help myself.
“Dad, isn’t a boy good enough? Why are you so convinced it’s a girl?”
My question made his forehead crease. “A daughter is a father’s princess, I just prefer girls.”
That was the end of our conversation.
He turned back to Mom, murmuring about how my sister’s birth would be “Daddy’s perfect day“.
The favoritism couldn’t be more obvious. My father was beyond excited about this unborn girl.
In the following weeks, he hired multiple caregivers to attend to my mother’s every need, taking extreme precautions for what they called a “high–risk geriatric pregnancy.”
My mother never raised a hand against me again, but whenever our eyes met, she’d coldly command me to “get out.”
Dad wasn’t any better. “Back off if you know what’s good for you,” he warned. “Your mom’s the VIP in this house now. Don’t even think about stressing
her out.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. The next day, I packed my essentials and left.
I found a cheap studio apartment and started piecing together some semblance of independence.
Three months later, news reached me: my mother had fallen down the stairs and miscarried.
Despite everything, she was still my mother, so I rushed back.
Chelsea and Zoe had beaten me there. They were hovering by Mom’s bedside.
Mom lay in bed, staring at nothing, eyes unfocused.
“Mom, how could you be so careless?” Chelsea sniffled, concerned about the bandage on Mom’s forehead.
Zoe said nothing, but her eyes were filled with worry.
I stood awkwardly in the doorway, not knowing my place in this tableau.
Mother stared vacantly for several long moments before slowly returning to reality. The moment her eyes landed on me, something changed–the emptiness instantly replaced by cold hatred.
“GET OUT!” she hissed, gesturing weakly toward the door.
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