Jealous, Mom, that people on that beach were complimenting Maya’s confidence instead of looking at her.”

There was a silence on the line.

One second.

Two.

Three.

“What?” my mother finally whispered, and all the fight had gone out of her voice.

And I did the thing that ended the conversation, and ended, in a sense, my mother’s lifelong habit of believing Gwen over everyone else.

I opened my phone, and I sent her six of the high-resolution stills David had exported from Liam’s memory card the night before: the wallet, the money in the beach bag, the vape by the baby pool, the man behind the cabana in the two-in-the-morning porch light.