They Demanded $20,000 At 1 A.M.—So I Told Them To Call Her

to keep us “safe.” In reality, it let her track whether I was at work or daring to have a life she wasn’t benefiting from.

She’d forgotten that cameras record both ways.

Two blue dots pulsed downtown. Not at Mercy General. At a restaurant: The Prime Rib Vault. A place where the cheapest entrée cost more than my weekly grocery bill, where the windows continue reading …