Chapter 3 - THE PHONE INSIDE THE BABY WIPES
Paula was the first outside person who really saw me.
She delivered groceries on alternating Thursdays, always around noon. On the day she changed everything, I had dragged the folding chair to the attic window and pressed both hands against the glass while she unloaded bags from the back of her van. The distance was too far for shouting. The window barely opened. So I mouthed one word.
Help.
She looked up. Really looked. Most people would have blinked and turned away, telling themselves they must have misunderstood. Paula didn’t. Her face changed. Not wildly. Not enough to alert Marlene, who was in the kitchen below. Just enough for me to know she had seen my hands and my swelling belly and the deadbolt on the outside of the attic door. She left that day without speaking to me. I thought the chance was gone.
On her next delivery, Marlene left the boxes in the upstairs hall for me to “sort later.” Inside the pack of baby wipes, tucked deep between two sealed bundles, was a cheap prepaid phone wrapped in plastic and a folded note with four words: IF YOU CAN, RECORD EVERYTHING.
My hands shook so badly I had to sit down.
That phone became the first thing in months that felt like mine. I kept it hidden beneath a loose metal strip under the cot at first, then later inside a gap in the attic insulation where Marlene never reached because she hated dust. I turned the brightness all the way down. I muted every tone. I practiced unlocking it in the dark. Because of the weak signal, I couldn’t make reliable calls, but the recording app worked without service. So I gave myself a job. Every night after they left, I pulled the phone out and reviewed the clips. The attic door. The folding chair. The feed bag. Marlene’s voice. Darren’s screen with its floating reactions and those cheap anonymous usernames sliding up the side like insects. If their channel existed, I needed proof. If they ever said it was medical care, I needed their own words.
The first file I managed to upload took almost a minute. I lay flat against the floor in the far corner, one hand over the phone, watching the weak progress icon tremble. Then it turned solid green.
I stared at that tiny dot until my eyes burned.
May you like
For the first time, the evidence existed somewhere outside the attic. Somewhere Darren could not smash with his heel. Somewhere Marlene could not scrub away with lies. I sent the files to the only email address I could remember by heart that wasn’t mine—Paula’s, written on the back of the note. I did not know whether she would open them, understand them, or believe them. I only knew I could not die with the proof still trapped in the same room.
Over the next six weeks, I sent more. Short clips. Audio. Fragments of their language. Darren joking about “private viewers.” Marlene saying, “Keep her weak enough and she’ll sign anything after the birth.” One night I captured Darren telling someone downstairs that if I kept resisting, they would claim pregnancy psychosis and take the baby before I could speak to any doctor alone. I sent that too. Then I waited, because trapped women become experts at waiting.
