“Denise!” he shouted, slamming his hand against the acrylic. The sound was dull, pathetic. “What have you done? What did you tell the police? Withdraw the charges immediately!”
He leaned close to the partition, eyes bloodshot. “This is a family matter, isn’t it? We just visited your house, that’s all.”
Visited.
He used the word like it could rewrite trespassing into something benign.
Behind him, my mother appeared on another screen, eyes swollen from crying. Kristen wasn’t there yet; I’d been told she’d caused a scene and was being held separately.
My father’s voice cracked, shifting strategy. “Kristen is remorseful now. She’s still young. If she gets a criminal record, what will happen to her life? Are you really going to send your own sister to prison?”
I stared at him through the acrylic, and something in me hardened—not with hatred, but with recognition. Even now, he wasn’t apologizing. He was negotiating. He was trying to use guilt as currency.
“You still don’t understand,” I said.
My voice was quiet, but it carried.
“I didn’t call the police because you visited,” I continued. “I did it because you systematically tried to destroy my life—my work, my privacy, my home.”