“Since Monday,” Dustin said. “She also took my food away if I cried. And Aunt Ellie took videos of me on her phone. She said she was going to send them to Dad to show him I am a bad boy.”
Clarissa picked up the old spare phone she gave Dustin to play games on. She checked the videos and found a short recording by accident. Ellie’s voice was clear on the speaker: “Make him cry again. If Parker sees how annoying this kid is, he will finally agree that Clarissa should send him away to live with his real father.”
Then Alana’s voice said: “When she gets tired of fighting for him, she will give us this lake house. She doesn’t need two houses anyway.”
Clarissa put the phone down on the table. This was not just bad discipline. They were hurting her son on purpose to break up her marriage and take her property.
That night, Clarissa drove Dustin to his paternal grandparents’ house in a quiet town near Zanesville. His grandparents, Teresa and Raymond, welcomed him with big hugs, sweet bread, and promises to go fishing the next morning.
Before driving back home to Columbus, Clarissa looked at the notebook again. On the very last page, Alana had written: “If your mother wants to keep Parker , she will have to choose.”
When Clarissa unlocked her apartment in Columbus late that night, she saw Parker sitting alone in the dark living room. Ellie’s phone was sitting on the coffee table, and Parker had just finished listening to the entire recording.
PART 3
Parker did not look up when Clarissa walked in. His head was down, and he held his hands tight. The recording was still playing softly in the background, with Alana saying clearly: “Don’t give him chicken. Let him learn that in this family, our own blood comes first.” Then came Ellie’s loud laugh.
Clarissa put her keys on the table. “Where did you get her phone?”
“She left it in Mom’s car,” Parker said quietly. “When they got back to Columbus, they called me to pick them up. Ellie got in my truck and kept saying bad things about you. When she got out, she forgot her phone. I wanted to give it back, but a notification popped up on the screen. The recording was sent to our family group chat.”
Clarissa looked at him without emotion. “I didn’t send it. Dustin must have pressed something when he showed me the file.”
Parker rubbed his face with his hands. “I saw the videos too.”
There were six videos on the phone. In one video, Dustin stood at the table while everyone else ate fried chicken. Alana asked him if he understood that good kids don’t ask for things. In another, Ellie made him say he was a bad boy. In a third, Mason held candy in front of Dustin and laughed while Alana said treats were only for real grandchildren.
Clarissa felt her anger rising again. “Now do you see why I won’t accept a simple apology?”
Parker nodded slowly. “Yes, I see it now.”
“It’s not enough for you to just say you are on my side,” Clarissa said firmly. “I want to know what you are going to do about it.”
Parker put the phone on the table. “I already called my mom. I told her she is never coming to this house or the lake house again. I told Ellie I don’t want to see her while she acts like this.”
“And what happens when your mom calls you crying?” Clarissa asked. “What happens when she says she is sick, or when your whole family calls you a bad son for leaving her?”
Parker stayed quiet for a moment. “I will just have to stand my ground.”
Clarissa crossed her arms. “No, Parker. You can’t just try. Either you protect my son completely, or you go live with them. Dustin is not going to live in a house where he has to wonder if his stepdad will stand up for him.”
Her words hit him hard. Parker lowered his head. “You are right.”
Parker had always tried to avoid fights, and Clarissa used to think that was just him being nice. Now she realized that people who avoid conflict end up letting innocent people get hurt just to keep things easy for themselves.
“There is something else,” Parker said, opening a text chat on Ellie’s phone.
Clarissa read the messages between Ellie and Alana. Alana wrote: “If the kid goes to live with his real father, Clarissa will be free.” Ellie replied: “And Parker always wanted his own kids anyway. Then we can convince her to sell the lake house. The money would be much more useful for us.”
There were also pictures of the house deed, tax papers, and messages where Ellie asked how to take a house that belonged to someone else.
Clarissa felt sick to her stomach. “They went into my private office and took pictures of my papers.”
“Yes,” Parker said softly. “Ellie admitted she did it last week.”
Clarissa looked right into his eyes. “Did you know anything about this?”
“No! I swear I had no idea,” Parker said quickly.
“Don’t swear to me. Prove it,” Clarissa said. She forwarded all the videos, pictures, and messages to her email and saved them on a memory drive. Parker did not try to stop her.
“I am meeting a lawyer tomorrow,” Clarissa said. “They went through my private papers, hurt my son, and tried to trick us to steal my house.”
“I will come with you,” Parker said.
“I don’t need you to come to protect me,” Clarissa replied. “I need you to come as a witness and tell the truth, even if your mother gets into big trouble.”
Parker swallowed hard. “I will do it.”
The next day, Clarissa met with Eleanor Patel, a lawyer who deals with family problems. Eleanor looked at all the evidence carefully.
“This is systematic emotional abuse of a child,” Attorney Patel said. “Taking away food, isolating him, and making him feel worthless is very serious. He should see a child psychologist to help him heal.”
“I left him with them for two weeks,” Clarissa said, feeling very guilty.
“You trusted your family,” the lawyer told her gently. “The fault belongs entirely to the people who hurt him.”
That same day, Clarissa filed an official police report. Parker went with her and told the police everything without lying or hiding anything to protect his mother.
When Alana found out, she sent Parker crying voice messages: “I am your mother! How can you let that woman put me in trouble? I was just teaching the boy discipline! Kids today get traumatized by everything!”
Parker answered her only once. “Never call my wife ‘that woman’ again. Clarissa is my wife, and Dustin is my son. What you did was abuse, not discipline.”
“Are you really choosing a kid who isn’t even your own blood over your mother?” Alana cried.
“I am choosing to do the right thing,” Parker said, and hung up the phone.
Ellie got angry and wrote in the big family group chat that Clarissa was crazy and ruining an old woman’s life over a small fight about food. Some relatives started saying bad things about Clarissa.
Then Parker posted one of the videos directly into the group chat. He didn’t write any angry words. He just typed: “This is what actually happened. Anyone who thinks this is okay should never call me again.”
