{"id":20833,"date":"2026-05-25T11:55:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T04:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/?p=20833"},"modified":"2026-05-25T11:55:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T04:55:19","slug":"her-own-sister-set-her-up-for-a-hit-and-run-but-one-courtroom-moment-changed-everything-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/?p=20833","title":{"rendered":"Accused of a crime she didn\u2019t commit, she thought her life was over\u2026 then the judge spoke."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
The night my sister ruined a stranger\u2019s life, my mother tried to bury mine beside it.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Rain hit the floor-to-ceiling windows of my parents\u2019 Westchester house with the steady violence of gravel thrown against glass.<\/p>\n

The whole living room smelled like cold coffee, expensive perfume, and wet wool.<\/p>\n

My coat was wet because Chloe was wearing it.<\/p>\n

Not borrowing it.<\/p>\n

Not accidentally taking the wrong one.<\/p>\n

Wearing it after stealing my car, hitting a man, leaving him bleeding in the street, and driving twelve miles back to the house where she knew my parents would protect her.<\/p>\n

My mother, Evelyn, had both hands locked on my shoulders.<\/p>\n

Her acrylic nails dug through my blouse hard enough to snag the seam.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust tell the police you were driving,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

I looked at her hands first.<\/p>\n

Then I looked at her face.<\/p>\n

There was no fear there for the man in the road.<\/p>\n

There was no horror for what Chloe had done.<\/p>\n

There was only annoyance that I had not immediately understood my assigned role.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom,\u201d I said, \u201clet go of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did not.<\/p>\n

Across the room, Chloe stood by the fireplace in my coat, trembling in a way that looked rehearsed.<\/p>\n

Her mascara had run in clean dark lines down her cheeks, but her eyes were dry.<\/p>\n

My father, Richard, paced behind her with his phone in one hand, whispering half-sentences to himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis cannot touch Chloe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said it the way another father might say, \u201cCall an ambulance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has her final interviews for the state assembly campaign. She has sponsors. She has a life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then his eyes shifted to me.<\/p>\n

That was the part that still hurt, even after all those years.<\/p>\n

I was thirty-two years old.<\/p>\n

I had survived law school, clerkships, threats, public scrutiny, and the kind of work that follows you home at night.<\/p>\n

But in that house, I was still nineteen.<\/p>\n

I was still the daughter who left college without explaining enough for them to forgive me.<\/p>\n

I was still the family problem.<\/p>\n

I was still the story they told in lowered voices when Chloe entered a room glowing with awards and photographs and the right donors around her.<\/p>\n

They had never asked why I left my undergraduate program.<\/p>\n

They had never asked why I stopped using Vance professionally.<\/p>\n

They had never asked what I did after I disappeared into night classes, borrowed apartments, and jobs that paid just enough to keep me from drowning.<\/p>\n

They saw a retail manager because I let them see one.<\/p>\n

In one small corner of my life, I did manage a store.<\/p>\n

It had started as a cover during law school and later became a quiet investment I kept because the employees there mattered to me.<\/p>\n

But my main work was in a federal courtroom.<\/p>\n

My staff called me Your Honor.<\/p>\n

My parents called me a failure.<\/p>\n

There are families that forget to love one child.<\/p>\n

Then there are families that remember, study the weakness, and build a whole household around it.<\/p>\n

Evelyn squeezed my shoulders harder.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have no future anyway,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The words came out flat.<\/p>\n

Practical.<\/p>\n

Like she was asking me to move my car out of the driveway.<\/p>\n

I heard the storm.<\/p>\n

I heard Chloe sniff once for effect.<\/p>\n

I heard my father stop pacing.<\/p>\n

Then my mother slapped me.<\/p>\n

It was not the hardest hit I had ever taken.<\/p>\n

It was simply the most honest.<\/p>\n

The room froze after it.<\/p>\n

A log shifted in the fireplace and sent up a small crack.<\/p>\n

Rain slid down the glass in silver lines.<\/p>\n

Somewhere near the kitchen, a clock kept ticking like it was counting down something none of them understood.<\/p>\n

Chloe\u2019s mouth twitched.<\/p>\n

She tried to hide it.<\/p>\n

Not well enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to be reasonable,\u201d my father said.<\/p>\n

I laughed once, but there was no humor in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cA man is bleeding in the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chloe rolled her eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe stepped out of nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hit a human being and drove away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI panicked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou drove twelve miles back here.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked away.<\/p>\n

Not from shame.<\/p>\n

From boredom.<\/p>\n

Richard cleared his throat and stepped closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cClara, the car is registered to you. The intersection cameras will pull your plate. You live alone. You work retail. You have no public profile that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was when I understood he had already moved past morality.<\/p>\n

He was building the defense.<\/p>\n

My own father was standing in front of me, calculating how much damage my life could absorb so Chloe\u2019s campaign did not have to.<\/p>\n

Evelyn released one shoulder only to point at me.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour sister matters,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The sentence landed softly.<\/p>\n

That made it worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is going somewhere. You have always survived being nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked at Chloe.<\/p>\n

She was wearing my dark coat, the one I kept in the back seat of my sedan because courtrooms were always colder than they looked.<\/p>\n

The hem was wet.<\/p>\n

One sleeve had a smear of road grit near the cuff.<\/p>\n

A tiny shard of clear plastic clung to the wool.<\/p>\n

Headlight lens, I thought.<\/p>\n

Or turn signal casing.<\/p>\n

My mind did what it always did under pressure.<\/p>\n

It stopped feeling and started recording.<\/p>\n

At 8:43 p.m., my encrypted vehicle system had detected an emergency event.<\/p>\n

At 8:47 p.m., the GPS log showed my car leaving the crash location.<\/p>\n

At 9:14 p.m., my head clerk had texted me twice.<\/p>\n

At 9:16 p.m., the federal marshal assigned to my courtroom had called.<\/p>\n

At 9:18 p.m., the private investigator I retained after a threat last year had sent a single message.<\/p>\n

Vehicle alert confirmed. Call me.<\/p>\n

My car was not just a sedan.<\/p>\n

After a cartel-related death threat connected to a case I presided over the previous year, the marshal\u2019s office had insisted on additional safeguards.<\/p>\n

Encrypted dash camera.<\/p>\n

Internal audio and video.<\/p>\n

Live GPS tracking.<\/p>\n

A judicial panic tag.<\/p>\n

Remote evidence upload.<\/p>\n

None of that meant I was untouchable.<\/p>\n

It meant that Chloe had picked the worst possible car in the driveway.<\/p>\n

She just did not know it yet.<\/p>\n

My family had been so committed to believing I was small that they had never bothered to ask what kind of life I lived when I left their house.<\/p>\n

That ignorance was about to become evidence.<\/p>\n

I asked Chloe, very quietly, \u201cSo you hit him, saw he was gravely injured, and chose to flee to protect your campaign?\u201d<\/p>\n

My father stiffened.<\/p>\n

He heard the shape of the question before she did.<\/p>\n

\u201cClara,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n

Chloe was faster than caution and slower than arrogance.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I did,\u201d she snapped.<\/p>\n

The room changed.<\/p>\n

It was not visible at first.<\/p>\n

The chandelier did not sway.<\/p>\n

The fire did not go out.<\/p>\n

But something had moved beneath all of us.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd who would ever believe you if you tried to say otherwise?\u201d Chloe continued.<\/p>\n

She stepped closer, still wearing my coat.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at you. It\u2019s your car. Your license plate. Your sad little apartment. Your miserable little life. It\u2019s your mess now.\u201d<\/p>\n

My mother did not gasp.<\/p>\n

My father did not correct her.<\/p>\n

He only stared, his mouth tight, already trying to decide if those words could somehow be buried.<\/p>\n

That was when I reached into my bag and took out my phone.<\/p>\n

The screen lit my palm.<\/p>\n

Four notifications waited there.<\/p>\n

One from my head clerk.<\/p>\n

One from the federal marshal.<\/p>\n

One from the private investigator.<\/p>\n

One from the vehicle system.<\/p>\n

EMERGENCY EVENT RECORDED.<\/p>\n

Chloe\u2019s eyes flicked down.<\/p>\n

Her expression faltered for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is that?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing you should have checked before stealing my car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evelyn\u2019s fingers slipped from my blouse.<\/p>\n

Richard went still enough to look carved.<\/p>\n

I opened the secure folder.<\/p>\n

The first thumbnail showed wet pavement, glare from headlights, and a shape moving across the frame.<\/p>\n

The second showed the interior cabin camera.<\/p>\n

Chloe\u2019s face was reflected in the rearview mirror.<\/p>\n

Her mouth was open.<\/p>\n

Both hands were tight on the wheel.<\/p>\n

The timestamp read 8:43 p.m.<\/p>\n

She stared at the screen as if refusing to recognize herself might change the file.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can\u2019t record inside,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can.\u201d<\/p>\n

My mother turned on my father.<\/p>\n

\u201cRichard?\u201d<\/p>\n

He did not answer her.<\/p>\n

He was looking at my phone now, not me.<\/p>\n

That was when I tapped the contact I had been ignoring all evening.<\/p>\n

The call connected on the first ring.<\/p>\n

A familiar voice answered.<\/p>\n

\u201cJudge?\u201d<\/p>\n

The word was small.<\/p>\n

It should not have been dramatic.<\/p>\n

It was a title said into a phone by a man who had used it a thousand times.<\/p>\n

But inside my parents\u2019 living room, it hit harder than the slap.<\/p>\n

Chloe blinked.<\/p>\n

My mother\u2019s face went slack.<\/p>\n

My father looked at me like he had walked into the wrong courtroom.<\/p>\n

I lifted my eyes to all three of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cOpen the court,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

The marshal on the line asked, \u201cYour Honor, are you safe?\u201d<\/p>\n

Chloe flinched at the second title.<\/p>\n

That was the first honest thing her body had done all night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am,\u201d I said. \u201cFor now.\u201d<\/p>\n

My mother took one step back.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a judge?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was not admiration in her voice.<\/p>\n

It was offense.<\/p>\n

As if I had committed a betrayal by becoming someone without her permission.<\/p>\n

Richard lowered himself into a leather chair.<\/p>\n

Slowly.<\/p>\n

Carefully.<\/p>\n

Like his legs had stopped negotiating with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cClara,\u201d he said, \u201cwhy didn\u2019t you tell us?\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was not entirely true.<\/p>\n

They had asked questions over the years.<\/p>\n

What are you doing with your life?<\/p>\n

How long are you going to embarrass yourself?<\/p>\n

Do you know how this looks next to Chloe?<\/p>\n

They had just never asked anything that required them to hear the answer.<\/p>\n

The vehicle system uploaded the crash video to my secure evidence folder while all of us watched the progress bar creep across the screen.<\/p>\n

Chloe started breathing too fast.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she said. \u201cNo, no, no. Clara, please.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the first time she had used my name like I was real.<\/p>\n

My mother reached for her.<\/p>\n

Chloe shook her off.<\/p>\n

\u201cFix it,\u201d she hissed at Richard.<\/p>\n

My father\u2019s eyes snapped to her.<\/p>\n

There it was.<\/p>\n

The whole family machine exposed in two words.<\/p>\n

Fix it.<\/p>\n

Not I am sorry.<\/p>\n

Not is he alive.<\/p>\n

Not what have I done.<\/p>\n

Fix it.<\/p>\n

The marshal said my name again through the phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cJudge, patrol units are at the crash location. The victim has been transported.\u201d<\/p>\n

My breath caught despite myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlive?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. Critical, but alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first time that night, the room stopped being about my parents.<\/p>\n

A man I had never met was somewhere under bright hospital lights because my sister had decided her future mattered more than his pulse.<\/p>\n

That anger was cleaner than the hurt.<\/p>\n

I could use anger.<\/p>\n

I asked the marshal to stay on the line.<\/p>\n

Then I told my father to put his phone on the coffee table.<\/p>\n

He stared at me.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this is a potential felony obstruction situation,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

I had not raised my voice.<\/p>\n

I did not need to.<\/p>\n

The title had entered the room before I did, and now every word after it carried weight.<\/p>\n

He put the phone down.<\/p>\n

Evelyn whispered, \u201cThis is family.\u201d<\/p>\n

I turned to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cFamily is not a legal defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

She swallowed.<\/p>\n

My cheek still burned where she had hit me.<\/p>\n

A red mark showed on the black glass of the window when I turned my head, my reflection layered over the storm.<\/p>\n

For years, I had thought their contempt was something I needed to outgrow.<\/p>\n

Standing there, I finally understood it was something I needed to stop protecting.<\/p>\n

The first video finished loading.<\/p>\n

Chloe lunged for the phone.<\/p>\n

I stepped back before she reached me.<\/p>\n

Richard stood too fast, then stopped when the marshal\u2019s voice came through the speaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not touch her.\u201d<\/p>\n

The room went silent again.<\/p>\n

This time, nobody mistook silence for power.<\/p>\n

I played the audio.<\/p>\n

The sound of rain came first.<\/p>\n

Then tires.<\/p>\n

Then Chloe\u2019s voice, sharp and irritated.<\/p>\n

\u201cMove, move, move.\u201d<\/p>\n

A thud followed.<\/p>\n

A horrible one.<\/p>\n

Not cinematic.<\/p>\n

Not loud enough for the damage it carried.<\/p>\n

Then Chloe screamed.<\/p>\n

The car swerved.<\/p>\n

Something scraped under the bumper.<\/p>\n

My mother covered her mouth.<\/p>\n

Chloe whispered, \u201cStop it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I did not.<\/p>\n

The recording continued.<\/p>\n

Her breathing filled the cabin.<\/p>\n

Then her own voice again.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. No. I can\u2019t. Not now. Not before the interviews.\u201d<\/p>\n

My father closed his eyes.<\/p>\n

On the screen, Chloe\u2019s hands shook on the wheel.<\/p>\n

The car did not stop.<\/p>\n

The GPS route line appeared automatically in the corner of the video.<\/p>\n

Crash location to my parents\u2019 house.<\/p>\n

Twelve miles.<\/p>\n

No emergency call.<\/p>\n

No stop.<\/p>\n

No attempt to turn back.<\/p>\n

When the file ended, no one spoke for several seconds.<\/p>\n

The rain took over the room again.<\/p>\n

Then Richard said, barely above a whisper, \u201cWe need counsel.\u201d<\/p>\n

I almost laughed.<\/p>\n

He still thought he was choosing the next room.<\/p>\n

He still thought money could soften the shape of this.<\/p>\n

The marshal told me units were being dispatched to my parents\u2019 address.<\/p>\n

Chloe heard it.<\/p>\n

Her knees bent slightly.<\/p>\n

Not enough to fall.<\/p>\n

Just enough to show the first crack.<\/p>\n

\u201cDaddy,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n

My father did not look at her.<\/p>\n

That was when her world really began to collapse.<\/p>\n

She had always believed she was loved.<\/p>\n

Maybe she was.<\/p>\n

But she had also been useful.<\/p>\n

Useful children learn too late that worship disappears when liability arrives.<\/p>\n

Evelyn turned on me with tears finally gathering in her eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease. She made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

I touched my cheek once.<\/p>\n

\u201cA mistake is missing an exit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evelyn started shaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s your sister.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the man she hit is someone\u2019s son.\u201d<\/p>\n

That shut her mouth.<\/p>\n

For a second, I saw the truth try to enter her.<\/p>\n

It did not get far.<\/p>\n

Parents like mine do not receive truth whole.<\/p>\n

They chip it down until it becomes something they can blame on someone else.<\/p>\n

The first knock came nine minutes later.<\/p>\n

Not ten.<\/p>\n

Nine.<\/p>\n

I remember because the wall clock clicked once as the sound hit the door.<\/p>\n

Richard looked toward the foyer.<\/p>\n

Chloe\u2019s hand flew to his sleeve.<\/p>\n

Evelyn whispered my name like she had found it somewhere old and misplaced.<\/p>\n

\u201cClara.\u201d<\/p>\n

I did not answer.<\/p>\n

The knock came again.<\/p>\n

The marshal on the phone said, \u201cUniformed officers are at the door. Stay visible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richard moved as if in a dream.<\/p>\n

When he opened the door, the storm came in first.<\/p>\n

Two officers stood under the porch light, rain shining on their jackets.<\/p>\n

Behind them, I saw another vehicle pull in.<\/p>\n

My private investigator stepped out of it holding a folder against his chest to keep it dry.<\/p>\n

I had hired him months earlier for security work.<\/p>\n

That night, he became the second person in the house who knew exactly what my family had tried to do.<\/p>\n

He entered only after the officers did.<\/p>\n

He nodded once to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cJudge.\u201d<\/p>\n

My mother closed her eyes.<\/p>\n

Chloe made a small sound.<\/p>\n

It was not a sob.<\/p>\n

It was the sound of a person realizing the room had run out of exits.<\/p>\n

The officers separated us.<\/p>\n

They asked questions.<\/p>\n

They took Chloe\u2019s coat.<\/p>\n

My coat.<\/p>\n

The shard on the sleeve went into an evidence bag.<\/p>\n

The wet fibers were photographed.<\/p>\n

The phone was logged.<\/p>\n

My vehicle system export was preserved with its timestamp and chain-of-custody record.<\/p>\n

The officers asked if I wanted to make a statement about the assault in the living room.<\/p>\n

My mother looked at me then.<\/p>\n

Really looked.<\/p>\n

Not as a daughter.<\/p>\n

As a witness.<\/p>\n

I told the truth.<\/p>\n

Yes, she grabbed me.<\/p>\n

Yes, she slapped me.<\/p>\n

Yes, both parents pressured me to take responsibility for a hit-and-run I did not commit.<\/p>\n

Richard whispered, \u201cClara, don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked at him for a long moment.<\/p>\n

All my life, that had been the command.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t embarrass us.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t make it harder.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t tell people.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t expect too much.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t stand where Chloe wants to stand.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

So I did.<\/p>\n

Chloe was arrested first.<\/p>\n

She screamed when the cuffs went on.<\/p>\n

Not from pain.<\/p>\n

From insult.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is insane,\u201d she cried. \u201cI\u2019m running for office.\u201d<\/p>\n

One officer looked at her with the tired face of a man who had heard too many people confuse ambition with immunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot tonight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

My father sat back down.<\/p>\n

He did not defend her.<\/p>\n

My mother wept into both hands.<\/p>\n

I watched all of it from near the window, the phone still in my palm, my cheek still hot.<\/p>\n

The stranger Chloe had hit survived the night.<\/p>\n

His name was Daniel Price.<\/p>\n

He was a nurse coming home from a double shift.<\/p>\n

He had stepped into the crosswalk with a grocery bag in one hand and his phone in the other, because people who have worked sixteen hours sometimes trust walk signals more than they should.<\/p>\n

He had broken ribs, a fractured leg, and internal injuries that required surgery.<\/p>\n

He was alive because a passing driver called 911 six minutes after Chloe left him there.<\/p>\n

Six minutes.<\/p>\n

That number stayed with me.<\/p>\n

It was longer than a traffic light.<\/p>\n

Longer than a voicemail.<\/p>\n

Longer than it takes to decide whether another person\u2019s life matters.<\/p>\n

Chloe resigned from the race before charges were formally announced.<\/p>\n

Her sponsors did not wait for explanations.<\/p>\n

My father\u2019s friends stopped returning calls.<\/p>\n

My mother sent me fourteen messages in three days.<\/p>\n

The first eight blamed panic.<\/p>\n

The next three blamed childhood stress.<\/p>\n

The last three blamed me for not warning them I was someone they should not have underestimated.<\/p>\n

I did not respond.<\/p>\n

There were depositions.<\/p>\n

There were hearings.<\/p>\n

There were formal statements.<\/p>\n

There were lawyers who tried to make my secrecy look suspicious, until the evidence made that argument foolish.<\/p>\n

The dash-camera file did what truth often cannot do on its own.<\/p>\n

It stood still while everyone else tried to move around it.<\/p>\n

Chloe eventually pleaded guilty to felony hit-and-run and related charges.<\/p>\n

My parents were investigated for obstruction, and while the full legal consequences were narrower than my anger wanted, the public record did what family gossip never had.<\/p>\n

It named what happened.<\/p>\n

It named what they asked of me.<\/p>\n

It named what Chloe did.<\/p>\n

Daniel Price recovered slowly.<\/p>\n

I met him once months later in a courthouse hallway, not as a judge on his case, because I recused myself from anything connected to it immediately, but as the owner of the car that had almost ended his life.<\/p>\n

He walked with a cane.<\/p>\n

His sister stood beside him.<\/p>\n

I told him I was sorry.<\/p>\n

Not because I had hit him.<\/p>\n

Because my family had tried to make his suffering disappear behind my name.<\/p>\n

He looked at me for a long time.<\/p>\n

Then he said, \u201cYou didn\u2019t leave me there.\u201d<\/p>\n

I carried that sentence out of the building like a verdict.<\/p>\n

My parents never got the ending they wanted.<\/p>\n

No private dinner fixed it.<\/p>\n

No carefully worded apology restored the family photographs.<\/p>\n

No holiday call made me forget the feel of my mother\u2019s nails cutting into my blouse while she told me I had no future.<\/p>\n

For years, they had taught me I was the daughter no one would miss.<\/p>\n

That night, the record showed something else.<\/p>\n

It showed a woman standing in a storm-lit living room with a red handprint on her cheek, a phone in her hand, and enough evidence to finally stop apologizing for surviving them.<\/p>\n

The family word for disposable had always been resilient.<\/p>\n

I chose a better word.<\/p>\n

Free.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The night my sister ruined a stranger\u2019s life, my mother tried to bury mine beside it. Rain hit the floor-to-ceiling windows of my parents\u2019 Westchester house with the steady violence … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20831,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,22,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-inspiration","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20835,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20833\/revisions\/20835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readinstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}