Chapter 6 - THE VIDEO LESSONS
Marcus’s phone held the first real proof.
He turned it over voluntarily after Leonard advised him that deleting anything would make every problem worse.
There were videos.
Not secret medical torture.
Nothing so cinematic.
Worse because they looked ordinary.
Elsie sitting at a table while Helena placed crackers in front of her.
“Wait.”
Elsie reached.
Helena pulled the plate away.
“Big girls wait.”
Another:
Music playing loudly.
Elsie covered her ears.
Helena lowered her hands.
“No ears.”
Elsie cried.
Marcus’s voice behind camera:
“Mom, enough.”
Helena:
“She has to learn.”
Marcus did not stop recording.
Another:
Elsie beneath a small table.
Helena crouched.
“No hiding.”
She removed the weighted blanket from around the child’s shoulders.
Elsie screamed.
Video ended.
Why record?
Marcus said Helena wanted proof that “consistent boundaries” reduced the behaviors specialists were interpreting as developmental symptoms.
Then a message.
Helena:
Send me good clips only.
Marcus:
For what?
Helena:
Dr. Feldman Monday. If they see she can regulate when nobody babies her, they won’t overstate this.
Dr. Feldman was the developmental pediatrician.
Marcus:
They’ll ask about bad days too.
Helena:
Then stop manufacturing bad days.
There.
Helena believed accommodations created symptoms.
Then:
Marcus:
Trust review worries me.
Helena:
Exactly. Once an outside manager gets inside your house, they will make Natalie’s money control how you raise Natalie’s child.
That sentence was designed perfectly for a grieving widower.
Not:
You’ll lose money.
You’ll lose fatherhood.
May you like
Marcus believed her.
At first.
