Chapter 2
He didn't sit back down.
My dad left his chair pushed out at an angle and walked past the sideboard toward the hall. The wine glasses and the white plates with the gold rims were still on the dark wood table between us. I could hear his dress shoes on the hardwood and then the soft tap of his phone waking up. He held it in both hands, thumb sliding to pull up the camera app. The hallway light was brighter out there, spilling in a rectangle across the dining room rug.
I stayed where I was. My bunny was damp where I'd been holding it against my chest. The pink on its nose had gone a little darker from my hands. I didn't let go.
She stayed seated too, but she uncrossed her arms and then crossed them again. Her cream blouse made a faint rustle when she moved. She looked at his back and then at me, and her mouth was tight.
"Nobody move. I'm checking it right now," he said. His voice was low and flat the way it got when he was trying not to yell.
She stood halfway, one hand on the edge of the table. "Wait, you don't need—"
"I said wait here," he said without looking at her. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to.
He swiped. I could see the glow of the screen on his face from where I sat. The app made a little chirp when it connected to the hallway camera. He held the phone up a little higher so the light hit his eyes and I could see his brow furrow.
She tried again, quieter this time. "I can explain."
He ignored her and pressed play.
I knew what the camera saw because I had been there. The hallway ran from the dining room past the laundry room door. The time stamp in the corner was white numbers over the image. He tilted the phone just enough that I could see it too, even from the table.
There I was, small in the frame, holding my bunny. And there she was, her hand on my shoulder, not holding, guiding. Steering. Her fingers were curled over the top of my white top, pushing me forward toward the laundry room. My head was down.
She leaned in to look at the screen and her voice changed. "That's— that's not—"
On the video, the laundry room door opened. She opened it with one hand and kept the other on me. She said something I couldn't hear on the silent playback, and then she moved me inside. The door shut partway behind us. Not all the way. Enough that the camera lost us.
"Here she is," I said. My voice was hoarse from crying. "That's what I told you."
My dad's thumb hovered over the screen. He replayed the last five seconds. Her hand on my shoulder. The door. The bunny's ear sticking up over my arm as I was moved out of the hallway and out of view.
She stepped closer to him, her hands up now, palms out. "I can explain," she said again. "You have to let me explain what you're seeing. She was—"
He didn't answer her. He was watching the time stamp tick. 6:18. 6:19. The hallway stayed empty. No one came out. The laundry room door stayed closed.
His breathing got slower. I could hear it.
"Where's my daughter?" he asked. He wasn't looking at me at the table. He was looking at the phone, at the empty hallway on the screen where I should have been. "Where is she for nine minutes? The door didn't open again."
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Her eyes went to the phone and then to the wall where the painting hung.
"She's right here," she said, and tried to smile at me. It didn't reach her eyes. "She's confused. That's not what happened, sweetheart, you know that's not—"
My dad finally looked at her. Really looked at her. The warm lamplight from the dining room made his face half in shadow.
"Then explain what I'm looking at," he said. His voice was still quiet. He held the phone out between them so she had to look at the frozen image — her hand on my shoulder, the door half-closed, the time stamp. "You said you didn't take her in there. You said she was confused."
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I pulled my bunny tighter. My hands were shaking and I pressed them into its soft belly so he wouldn't see.
He turned his eyes to me for just a second and I knew he believed the screen more than her words now. And I knew there was still another screen he hadn't looked at yet.
