Chapter 3 - Sophie explains the phone
Sophie did not give a formal police interview in the bridal suite.
Later, a trained child interviewer spoke with her.
I watched from another room only when permitted.
Sophie said she had entered Amanda’s dressing room that morning looking for:
A pearl hair clip.
Amanda had told her earlier:
“It’s in the top drawer.”
Instead Sophie saw the black phone charging beneath a folded towel.
Why pick it up?
Because a photograph on the screen showed:
“Our house.”
The interviewer asked:
“What did you do?”
“I looked.”
“What did you see?”
“Daddy’s picture room.”
My study.
“And?”
“Amanda wrote numbers.”
“What numbers?”
Sophie shrugged.
Then:
“Pictures with red circles.”
That was new.
“What happened next?”
“Amanda came.”
“What did Amanda do?”
“She said give it.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it was Daddy’s stuff.”
Then:
“I put it in flowers.”
Her flower basket.
“Did Amanda know?”
“She looked.”
“Did she find it?”
“No.”
Then before the ceremony Amanda pulled Sophie into bridal suite.
Asked again.
Sophie denied having it.
Amanda searched the basket but apparently only lifted top layer of loose petals.
Sophie had pushed phone beneath the woven liner.
Then Amanda accused her of lying.
Hair pull.
Slap.
No evidence Amanda had physically abused Sophie before that day.
That mattered.
Sophie said Amanda had yelled before.
Once threw away one of Sophie’s drawings.
Once told her:
“Your father would have more time if you weren’t always interrupting.”
Cruel.
Not necessarily criminal.
But the wedding-day assault was clear enough for a misdemeanor child-battery investigation.
Then Sophie asked the interviewer:
“Are we still having cake?”
The interviewer smiled.
“Someone else can answer that.”
We ate cake in my mother’s kitchen that night.
May you like
Sophie still wore her flower-girl dress.
No one called it a wedding cake.
