Chapter 5 - Grandma Picked Up the Pink Tablet Herself
The chandelier hummed faintly above us. Nobody had touched their water glasses. The air still felt tight from the accusation, and my cheeks were hot in a way I couldn't blink away.
Grandma hadn't moved from the end of the table. She stood with both hands braced on the back of her chair, her gray bun neat against the daylight coming through the sheer curtains. She looked from my aunt in the white dress to me, then past us to the hutch against the far wall.
I followed her eyes. My tablet was still there, propped against the stacked plates, pink case bright against the dark wood. The little red light was on. It had been on all morning.
"That thing's still running," Grandma said.
My aunt gave a short laugh. "Great. So she's been recording us without asking."
I swallowed. My throat felt dry. "I set it up this morning," I said. "Before anyone came down."
Grandma lifted a hand, just enough to stop us both. She walked around the long table slowly, her shoes quiet on the rug. The men by the sideboard stepped back to let her pass. Nobody spoke. The glassware caught the light as she moved.
She stopped in front of the hutch. For a second she just looked at the setup — the angle of the tablet, the way it faced the table and the doorway, my handbag sitting a few feet away in the foreground. She didn't touch anything at first.
"Did you turn this on yourself?" she asked, without looking at me.
"Yes," I said. "I propped it there around ten. I wanted to check my spacing for the dance."
My aunt crossed her arms. The gold necklace shifted at her throat. "In the dining room? With everyone coming for lunch?"
"I didn't think anyone would be in here yet," I said. "The light was good."
Grandma reached out then. Her fingers were steady, the skin thin over her knuckles. She tapped the screen once to wake it. I could see the live image from where I stood — the long table, all of us standing around it, frozen mid-argument. She pressed the red button with her thumb.
The recording stopped.
A small sound left me before I could stop it. Not relief, exactly. More like the air going out of something I'd been holding too tight. It was safe now. It couldn't be talked over or recorded over.
Grandma picked up the tablet and held it flat against her palm, screen down. She turned to face us.
"Give that to me," my aunt said quickly. "If she's been filming private family time, that needs to be deleted."
I stared at her. "It's just me practicing. It's not — "
"I don't want my lunch conversation on some video," my aunt said. Her voice sharpened. "That's an invasion of privacy. You can't just record people in someone else's house."
Grandma didn't hand it over. She tucked the tablet a little closer to her side, under the edge of her blue jacket.
"No one is deleting anything," she said.
"Ma," my aunt said. "Come on."
Grandma looked at her hard. "You asked for a bag check in front of everybody. You wanted witnesses. This is a witness too."
The room went quiet again. One of my uncles shifted his weight. Silverware clinked faintly when the table wobbled.
My aunt's mouth tightened. "So she gets to keep a secret video and I get accused of overreacting?"
"You're not accused of anything," Grandma said. "Neither is she. Not yet."
She looked at me then. Her expression wasn't soft, but it wasn't cold either. It was the same look she'd given me at church picnics when I was little and someone said I'd taken an extra cookie — wait and prove it.
"Is there more video on here from this morning?" she asked me.
I nodded. "I did three run-throughs. I just left it running after. I forgot to turn it off when I went upstairs to change."
"All right," she said. "Then it stays with me until after lunch."
My aunt took a step forward. "You can't be serious. We're just going to sit and eat with that hanging over us?"
"We're going to sit and eat," Grandma said, "because that's what I prepared this meal for. No one touches this tablet. No one goes near that hutch to turn it back on or wipe it. We eat first. Then we sort it."
She didn't raise her voice. She didn't have to. The way she held the tablet said she meant it.
I felt my shoulders drop a fraction. My bag was still on the table where I'd left it, zipped shut again after the search. My hands were shaking, so I pressed them against the sides of my beige dress.
May you like
"Go wash your hands," Grandma told me quietly. "Then sit down."
I nodded and headed toward the hallway bathroom, glancing back once. Grandma was carrying the pink-cased tablet to her chair at the head of the table. She set it face-down beside her plate, her handbag on the other side, like she was guarding both ends of the truth until she decided what came next.
