Chapter 4
My dad just stared at me after I said there was more. His phone was still in his hand, the laundry room footage frozen on the screen, and I could feel his eyes trying to figure out if I was making it up.
"More?" he said.
It was the only word he could get out. His voice was low and careful, like he was afraid of what the next answer would be.
I pressed my bunny tighter against my chest. The fur was warm from where I'd been holding it, and the pink nose was smushed against my thumb. I didn't look at her. I looked at him.
"Look inside my room," I said.
He didn't answer right away. He blinked once, slow, and then his thumb moved over his phone. I watched him swipe away from the laundry room clip. The little menu for our cameras came up — I knew it by the tiny pictures, the one for the front door, the one for the hallway, the one for the living room. My room had its own square. He'd put it there after I had nightmares last winter and said I wanted him to be able to check on me. He'd never said he actually watched it.
"What are you doing?" Her voice cut in. She was still by the dining table, but she wasn't sitting the way she had been. Her shoulders were up and her hands were flat on the dark wood. "Honey, you don't need to do that. You've seen enough. She's tired and she's confused."
Dad didn't look up. He tapped the square for my room.
She moved then. Not fast, but deliberate. She pushed her chair back — it scraped loud against the floor — and came around the table toward him in the hallway where he'd stepped to get better light. I followed a few steps behind, still holding my bunny.
"Stop," she said, quieter now. "Please. Just stop and talk to me for a second."
She reached for his arm, not his phone at first. Her fingers brushed his sleeve, the navy fabric of his shirt, and tried to tug him back toward the dining room. He shifted his shoulder just enough that her hand slipped off.
"Give me a second," he said to her, not unkind, but flat. He was still looking at the screen.
I saw it over his elbow. The thumbnail for my room. It was from earlier that afternoon, the time stamp in the corner saying 3:42 PM. The image was small but clear — my little white bed with the quilt, my little dresser, and the door half closed. There was a shape in the thumbnail I recognized. A dark smear on the carpet I'd tried to ignore.
He stared at that thumbnail for a long beat. His breathing changed. I could hear it.
"When was this?" he asked, more to himself than to me. He tapped it.
The screen went black for a second and then a little white circle started spinning in the middle. Buffering.
She saw it too. Her whole face tightened. She stepped in closer, now between him and the wall, and this time she did reach for the phone. Not grabbing, but hovering her hand right over it, palm down, like she could cover it and make it disappear.
"You don't need to watch that," she said. Her voice was going up. "Nothing happened in there. I tidied up. That's all. Turn it off, we can talk about this like adults."
Dad lifted the phone slightly out of her reach without even thinking about it. It was a small movement, but it was enough that her hand hung in the air.
"Did you go in her room today?" he asked her. He didn't yell. He just kept watching that spinning circle.
She let out a laugh that didn't sound like a laugh at all. "Of course I went in her room. I live here. I clean, I do laundry. What kind of question is that?"
I felt my throat get tight. I squeezed my bunny so hard my knuckles hurt.
The circle was still spinning. My dad's thumb hovered over the play bar, waiting. In the dim light from the dining room lamp behind us, I could see the reflection of the hallway camera's picture trying to load on his glasses, or on his eyes — I wasn't sure.
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"Please," she said then, and her voice dropped completely. She wasn't talking to me anymore. She was only talking to him. Her hand was now on his forearm, holding on, not pulling. "Don't play that in front of her. Whatever you think you're going to see, it's not what it looks like. Just wait. Please wait until she's in bed."
He didn't push her away. He didn't answer her either. He just kept holding the phone up, waiting for the picture to clear, while I stood there with my bunny pressed to my chest and watched both of them.
