In the weeks that followed, the insults sharpened like daggers. Vanessa rolled her eyes whenever Eleanor misplaced her reading glasses. “She’s losing it,” she whispered to her husband, Mark, who was too engrossed in his phone to defend his mother. “She’s a liability. We’ll have to put her in a home,” Vanessa muttered. They thought Eleanor didn’t hear. But she always did.

Eleanor decided to play along. She let her hands shake a little longer at dinner. She pretended to forget where she left her wallet. She allowed them to believe the narrative of a fading, senile widow. Yet, behind her bedroom door, she was anything but weak or confused. She was methodical, recording phone conversations, photographing bruises from “accidental” bumps, and cataloging every instance of neglect. She even installed a tiny voice recorder in the living room lamp.