On Christmas morning, my daughter-in-law smashed my children’s gifts, but she saw something on the tablet screen and turned pale

On Christmas morning, my daughter-in-law Jessica watched my children from behind their backs while she smashed my son’s favorite gift against the wall.

The sound of plastic breaking should not have been heard at all that morning. The smell of cinnamon rolls, pine branches, and hot chocolate filled my mother’s living room. Small snowflakes stuck to the windowpanes, and a red paper star hung on the Christmas tree, which Tyler had cut out by hand the evening before.

Tyler was holding a wooden train. He had saved money for three months to buy it, dropping coins into a small glass jar every week. When he opened the box, his eyes lit up.

“Mom, look, the wheels really turn!”

I smiled at him and ran my hand over his hair.

“You saved the money yourself. That is why it is special.”

Exactly then Jessica came to the table. Silver wrapping paper clung to her red Christmas pajamas. She had a smile on her face, but her eyes were cold.

“Some children are very lucky,” she said. “They get everything they want.”

Garrett, her husband, looked over awkwardly.

“Jessica, don’t start today, at least.”

“I am not starting anything,” she replied. “I am just saying that life is not so easy for everyone.”

Tyler hugged the train to his chest. I immediately felt my stomach contract. Lately Jessica had been looking at my children as if their laughter were a crime committed against her.

Twenty minutes earlier, my mother had been pouring coffee for everyone and saying that this was the first Christmas in a long time when everyone had gathered together in the house. After the divorce, returning temporarily to my parents with the children had not been easy, but they had never made me feel that my debts or my children were a burden.

I wanted Tyler and Melody to remember one ordinary, safe Christmas.

But Jessica snatched the box from Tyler’s hands.

“Do you even know what unfairness means?” she asked.

“My brother, please give it back,” I told her.

“Don’t interfere, Anna.”

Then she dropped the train on the floor and stepped on it. The small wooden carriage cracked in two.

Tyler froze. His lower lip trembled, but he did not make a sound.

“Jessica!” Garrett said her name sternly for the first time.

Jessica seemed not to hear him. She tore a pink science kit from Melody’s hands and threw it at the wall. The microscope fell onto the carpet, the small glass bottles broke, and colored powder scattered across my mother’s white carpet.

Melody pressed the tablet to her chest. It was a pink tablet, with a small silver moon in the corner, which my father had given her. Her video of the snow was still visible on the screen.

I put both children behind my back.

“No one here will dare frighten my children.”

“Your children do not deserve happiness!” Jessica shouted, pointing a finger at Tyler. “Stop crying! Your children do not deserve happiness!”

Such silence fell over the room that I could even hear the clicking of the Christmas tree lights. Blood throbbed in my temples.

“My pain does not give you the right to hurt children,” I said calmly, although my hands were trembling.

Jessica snickered.

“You do not know what I lost. Treatment, empty rooms, years… this life belonged to me.”

“And therefore you have to smash the children’s gifts?” my mother asked.

Jessica looked toward her, and suddenly the color left her face.

My mother’s mother, our grandmother Nino’s, emerald necklace, earrings, and ring had disappeared several weeks earlier. Mother thought she had put them somewhere and forgotten. She intended those jewels for Melody in the future.

Melody took one step forward. Her small fingers were gripping the tablet so tightly that her fingernails had turned white.

“Aunt Jessica, do you want me to show everyone what you did with Grandma’s jewelry?”

For the first time Jessica said nothing.

“What are you talking about, child?” she finally laughed quietly.

“I have a video,” Melody answered. “You can tell it yourself, or I will play it.”

Jessica moved toward her. I stepped in front of her.

“Step back.”

“Give me that,” she hissed through her teeth.

“Mom,” Melody whispered.

Jessica raised her hand, as if she intended to take the tablet away. Garrett moved from his place, while my mother grabbed the edge of the table. Melody turned the screen toward me and put her finger on the file. Exactly then the doorbell rang, and my father shouted from the hallway that a police officer had come…

At the mention of the police, Jessica’s hand froze in the air. Melody hugged the tablet to her chest, and I stood in front of her as if my body were the only door between the children and Jessica.

“Who called the police?” Garrett asked.

“I did,” my father answered from the hallway. “When they smashed a gift against the wall, I realized this was no longer a family argument.”

A thirty-year-old police officer stood at the door. Snow melting from his hat dripped onto his shoulders, and he held a small black notebook in his hand.

“Who owns the house?” he asked.

“I do,” my mother answered.

“Then I ask everyone not to move from their places. Take the children into another room.”

“No,” Melody suddenly said. “You have to watch the video first.”

There was such firmness in her voice that I stopped too. The seven-year-old child was no longer visible. She was a little girl who had seen something and decided not to carry the truth alone anymore.

“Melody, are you sure?” I asked her.

She nodded.

“Grandma told me that if someone said the jewelry was missing, I had to remember everything. So I turned on the camera while I was testing my new tablet.”},{

Jessica’s face changed.

“You are a child. You do not even know what you are saying.”

“But I do know,” Tyler said, taking his sister’s hand. “You smashed the train too.”

Melody opened the file. My mother’s room appeared on the screen. The shot shook slightly because the tablet was standing on the windowsill, but everything could be seen: dark blue curtains, an old wardrobe, and a clock showing eleven minutes past ten in the morning.

Jessica appeared in the doorway.

My mother held her breath.

“This is my room,” she said.

In the video Jessica first looked behind her, then opened the wardrobe. She took out a small brown velvet bag, put something inside it, and hid the bag in the pocket beside the black handbag.

Garrett looked at his wife.

“Jessica, is that you?”

“The shot is unclear,” she immediately answered. “I might look like someone else.”

“You have that little scar on your hand,” Melody said. “On your left wrist.”

Jessica quickly hid her hand.

The police officer looked at the tablet.

“Is it the original video file?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Melody did not send it to anyone. The file is in the tablet itself.”

“Then no one deletes it and no one touches the device.”

Jessica smiled bitterly.

“You have all already declared me guilty. Do you know what that means to me? I waited for years for someone in this family to love me.”

“Love cannot justify theft,” my mother told her.

Jessica turned toward her.

“You always chose her. Anna, her children, everyone… and you remembered me only when you needed something.”

“I gave you permission to enter your room,” Mother replied. “Not to take the jewelry.”

Melody played the second part of the video. This time, in the frame, Jessica was closing the pocket of the bag and sending a voice message to someone on her phone. The voice was low, but in the silence of the room it could be heard clearly.

“I took it. I will bring it to you this evening. Do not tell anyone anything.”

Garrett’s face fell apart.

“Who were you talking to?”

“I don’t know,” Jessica said.

“You yourself said that no one should be told,” I told her.

“It could refer to anything!”

The police officer looked toward the bag.

“Ma’am, please put the handbag on the table.”

Jessica put her hand on the bag, but did not let go.

“I will do nothing without a lawyer.”

“Then we will request a warrant,” the police officer answered calmly.

Garrett stood in front of her.

“Jessica, if you did this, tell me. Right now. Before everything gets worse.”

“Are you on their side too?”

“I just want the truth.”

Jessica suddenly opened the bag. We all moved backward. Inside were a wallet, perfume, a tissue, and a small black box. The box had a copper-colored lock.

“I found this there,” she said, looking at my mother. “It was lying by the stairs. The jewelry was not there either.”

My mother froze.

“This box is not mine.”

Melody looked at the screen and said quietly:

“This box was not visible in your bag in the video.”

Jessica immediately raised her head.

“Because I did not have it in the bag.”

The police officer approached the table and examined the box.

“Then where did you find it?”

Jessica did not answer. Garrett reached toward the box, but she grabbed him by the wrist.

“Do not open it.”

“Why?” Garrett asked.

Jessica’s lips turned pale.

Melody paused the video on the tablet. On the screen Jessica could again be seen coming out of the wardrobe. This time, a small object was clearly visible in her left hand—not the brown velvet bag, but exactly the black box that now lay on the table.

My father quietly exhaled.

“If this box was there, then someone else entered the room after the video.”

Everyone looked at one another.

At that moment something heavy fell from my mother’s room. The sound was as if the wardrobe door had been opened from inside.

The police officer reached for his weapon.

“Everyone stay here.”

But before he could go into the hallway, my phone rang. An unknown number was on the screen. I opened the message and read only one sentence: “If you want the children to be safe, delete the video immediately…”

My fingers froze as I read the message. Snow was falling outside, but suddenly such cold descended in the room, as if the windows had all been opened at once.

“What does it say?” Garrett asked.

I handed him the phone. He read the message and the blood drained from his face.

“Who threatened the children?” the police officer asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “But they know about the video.”

Melody came closer to me. Tyler took her hand.

“Mom, don’t delete the video,” he said. “Then they will win.”

“I will not delete it,” I said, and hugged both of them to my heart.

The police officer looked at Jessica.

“Does this number belong to you?”

“No.”

“Did anyone know that the child was recording a video?”

Jessica was silent for several seconds.

“I did not know.”

“But did you know that there was a camera in the room?” I asked her.

“No!”

Melody suddenly raised the tablet high.

“You have not seen this yet.”

She rewound the video several seconds. In the frame Jessica entered the room with the black box in her bag, and a few seconds later she took out the brown velvet bag with her left hand. Jessica put the jewelry in the bag, then left the black box on the lower shelf of the wardrobe.

“You had this box with you,” Melody said. “Then you returned and pretended to find it by the stairs.”

Jessica collapsed into a chair.

Garrett slowly shook his head.

“Why did you lie?”

“Because I did not want to tell you,” she answered.

“What?”

Jessica covered her face with both hands.

“I did not take the jewelry in order to sell it.”

No one in the room moved.

“Then why did you take it?” my mother asked.

Jessica took the brown velvet bag from the handbag. Her hands were trembling so much that she almost dropped it.

“Garrett has a debt.”

Garrett froze.

“What debt?”

“Your brother’s debt. The man you borrowed money from for treatment.”

“I did not ask anyone for money.”

“You did not know that I took it in your name.”

Her words fell into the room like heavy objects.

I looked at Garrett. He seemed to be seeing his own wife for the first time.

“In my name?” he repeated quietly.

“I signed. They told me that if I did not return the amount, they would take the house away from you. I wanted to sell the jewelry, then return everything.”

My mother opened the bag. The emeralds flashed in the light. The necklace, earrings, and ring were there.

“But you have not sold them yet,” she said.

“I did not have time.”

“And who were you sending the message to in the video?” I asked.

Jessica lowered her eyes.

The police officer opened the black box. Inside lay one small memory card and a folded piece of paper. My father picked up the paper and handed it to my mother.

Mother read it. Then her face changed completely.

“This is not my signature.”

“What does it say?” Garrett asked.

“It says that I gave the jewelry to Jessica as a gift.”

Jessica raised her head.

“I did not write this.”

Melody rewound the video again. In the corner of the frame, behind the curtain, another person appeared for several seconds. A man’s hand. He wore a wide silver ring on his finger.

Garrett looked at his own hand. He wore the same ring.

“That is not my hand,” he said.

The police officer carefully removed the memory card.

“This will require examination.”

My phone trembled again. This time an audio file arrived together with the message.

I played it.

Jessica’s voice could be heard, but not from today—from the previous evening.

“If anyone sees the video, frighten Anna and the children. Her mother will give up everything. Only so that the grandchildren will not be in danger.”

Jessica’s mouth remained open.

“I did not say that.”

“It is your voice,” Garrett said.

“I sent only one message… only one!”

“To whom?” I asked.

She looked toward me and, for the first time, was no longer trying to defend herself.

“To my lawyer’s assistant. He thought you were keeping the jewelry. But I did not record this audio.”

The police officer looked at the phone.

“Then who recorded you?”

At that moment Melody saw a new message on the tablet screen. The sender’s number was the same, but the text consisted of only four words: “This is only the beginning, Anna.”

A second file downloaded automatically. A photograph appeared on the screen, taken that same morning several streets away from our house. The address of Tyler and Melody’s school was written on the photograph.

I hugged the children more tightly.

The police officer said something into his radio and looked toward the door.

But the worst news had not yet been told to Jessica: the person who was threatening them had not fled the house. He had been standing beside the family members all this time…