It was the kitchen, that afternoon, from an angle up near the cabinets.

My mother hunched over the stove, Emrys crying on her back.

And clear on the audio, from the cool living room, Corinna’s voice ordering her to finish the cooking and the washing and the ironing, and Dashiell’s laugh, and Dashiell’s voice saying my mother had nothing better to do, being from the country.

He slammed the laptop shut.

“That’s out of context!”

“The context,” Isolde said, without raising her voice, “is that your four-year-old was left unattended by his father while a sick, elderly woman was made to do degrading labor in a hot room.