Chapter 3
I didn't move from where I stood beside my father's chair. My hand was tight around my bunny's ear and the pink on its nose was damp where I'd pressed my face into it. The phone screen was the only bright thing at our table now. The plates with the gold rims were still there, the wine glasses untouched, the lamp behind my father throwing a warm circle on the wall that didn't feel warm anymore.
My father's thumb hovered over the playback. His breathing had changed. It was slower and heavier through his nose.
"Then explain what I'm looking at," he said.
He didn't look at her when he said it. He kept his eyes on the screen, and that made her answer come a half second too late.
The video kept playing. The hallway camera showed the laundry room door. I remembered that door. It was white with a silver handle that was too high for me to reach on my own. In the footage, her hand was on my wrist. Not holding, pulling. My feet in my socks scuffed on the hardwood and then on the tile. She opened the door and guided me in and I went because I didn't know what would happen if I didn't.
She stepped out. She closed the door.
I heard my father exhale once, sharp.
On the screen, the door stayed closed. The timestamp in the corner ticked forward. 6:12 p.m. 6:13. 6:14. I was in there alone. The laundry room was cold. I remembered the cold coming up through my socks from the tile, the smell of detergent and dryer sheets, the washer humming even though it wasn't running. I had sat down because my legs felt tired from standing and then I had curled around my bunny and pressed my back against the dryer to try to be warm.
On the camera's wider angle you could see the closed door and hear faint sound even through the phone speaker. Crying. My crying, small and then louder, then quiet again when I tried to be good and stop.
My father turned the volume up a notch.
My stepmother shifted in her chair. Her cream blouse caught the light. She tried to keep her voice even.
"I can explain," she said. It came out thin.
He still didn't look at her. "You said it didn't happen."
"It's not what it looks like. She was confused. That's not what happened," she said, and the words came fast, the way adults talk when they want to get ahead of what you saw. "She had a tantrum before dinner. She wouldn't listen. I told her she needed five minutes to calm down. That's all it was. Five minutes."
My father finally looked at her, then back at the phone.
The timestamp said 6:12 to 6:27. Fifteen minutes. I had counted in my head by breathing. I didn't know numbers then the way I do now, but I knew it was long. Long enough that my socks felt wet from tears that had run down my legs, long enough that I started to think no one would open the door if I knocked.
"That's fifteen minutes," he said. His voice was low. "Your five minutes is fifteen. The floor is tile. She's four. She's sitting on the floor crying with her toy."
He angled the phone so the door filling the frame was unmistakable.
"It was discipline," she said. Her arms were crossed now, then uncrossed, her hands flat on the woven placemat. "Every parent needs a quiet space. I didn't hurt her. She was safe. I checked on her. That camera doesn't show me opening the door to check, but I did. She's confused about how long it was."
I felt my father's hand find my shoulder without him looking down at me. His fingers tightened just a little, not hard, just there.
"You told me she made it up," he said. "You told her she was lying."
"I said she was confused," she said again. "That's different. I didn't mean—"
"You left her on a cold floor and closed the door," he said. He wasn't shouting. That was what scared me more than shouting. "And you told me to believe you over what she said."
The footage looped a second when his thumb slipped. Again the pull on the wrist, again the door closing. My small face turned back toward the hallway once before the door shut, looking for him.
My throat hurt but I knew I had to say it before she talked more and made the picture smaller than it was. I tugged lightly on my father's beige trousers and whispered. I was still holding my bunny so tight my knuckles were white.
"Daddy, look, there's more," I whispered.
He bent his head to hear me. His stubble was close to my hair.
She heard it too. Her mouth opened, then closed.
My father looked down at me, his eyes wide and tired and trying to stay steady for me.
"More?" he said.
May you like
I nodded and held my bunny closer to my chest. I didn't want to say the next place yet until he was ready to look, because once he saw the laundry room he couldn't pretend it was nothing, and I needed him to keep looking.
He held the phone tighter and his other hand stayed on my shoulder, keeping me right beside him.
