Chapter 4 - Bia Explains Why the Phone Was in the DollA child interviewer spoke with Bia once.
Ricardo and Helena were not in the room.
Bia said Camila gave her the phone two days before she died.
“She said Grandma kept taking it.”
“What did your mom ask you to do?”
“Put it with Rosie.”
Rosie was the doll.
Camila had cut open an old seam in the doll’s clothing and tucked the phone inside.
Bia believed it was a game.
Camila told her:
“If Uncle Ricardo ever asks why Mommy was scared, give him this.”
Bia did not understand the sentence then.
After Camila died, Helena packed most of her belongings.
Bia remembered watching her grandmother search drawers, purses, even the bathroom cabinet.
“She asked where Mommy’s other phone was.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I didn’t know.”
“Why?”
Bia stared at the floor.
“Mommy told me it was private.”
That answer devastated Ricardo.
His sister had trusted a six-year-old with something an adult should have carried.
He also understood why.
Camila had tried telling adults.
Most redirected her concerns back through Helena.
Bia had no power, no authority, no ability to investigate.
But she was the one person Helena did not imagine Camila would use as a witness.
Ricardo refused to praise Bia for keeping the secret.
He told her:
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“You should never have had to hold something that scary by yourself.”
For the first time since the funeral, Bia cried like a child instead of speaking like evidence.
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