Chapter 7
That morning the light came back the way it always did in that living room, thin and even across the off-white walls. I woke up on the gray sofa with my cheek stuck to the armrest and my pink pajamas twisted around my knees. I hadn't meant to fall asleep there. My body had just stayed where she'd left me.
I could hear her before I saw her. The soft sound of her slippers on the dark wood floor, the faint click of her red nails against something. She was tidying. That was what she did when she was thinking. Fluffing a pillow that didn't need it, straightening a frame. I kept my breathing slow and kept my eyes half closed.
She stopped at the rug.
The beige rug under the coffee table had shifted. Just an inch or two at the corner nearest the sofa leg, where I'd pushed it with my foot the night before to cover the little fold I'd made. I hadn't tucked it well. In daylight it showed. The edge wasn't lying flat like she always kept it. It was curled up just enough to catch the light.
I felt my stomach drop, but I didn't move.
She stared at it for a long beat. Then she looked at me. I felt her look more than I saw it.
"Did you move this?" she asked. Her voice was calm. Not loud. The same controlled tone she'd used the day before when she held that small dark rectangle in her hand.
That was scene two. Scene three was me having to answer.
I sat up slowly. My throat was dry. I pulled my knees up the way I'd been sitting when she stood over me. Old habit. I glanced at the rug and then back at her face. She was wearing the same white satin blouse. Her short blonde bob was brushed neat. The little dark object wasn't in her hand right then, but I knew it was close. It always was. In a pocket, on the side table. I didn't look for it.
"I kicked it," I said. It came out quiet and fast. "In my sleep."
One short evasion. I'd practiced that lie in my head after I'd made the fold. If she asked, say sleep. Say accident. Don't say hiding. Don't say camera. I kept my hands in my lap so she wouldn't see them shake. I took a small breath through my nose and let it out. My eyes watered a little, but I didn't wipe them.
She didn't answer right away. She watched my face the way adults do when they're deciding if a kid is worth correcting. I could see the micro-movement in her jaw, a tiny tightening. She looked down at the rug again, then at the doorway, then back at me. There was a long pause where the room tone was the loudest thing. The house was quiet. No highway, no TV. Just the faint hum of the heater and both of us breathing.
"You toss a lot for a little girl," she said finally. It wasn't quite believing me and it wasn't quite calling me a liar. It was something in between, a placeholder she could use later if she needed to.
I shrugged, just one shoulder. "Sorry," I said. That was the plea part. Small, no tears. I'd learned that tears made her grip tighter.
She nodded once, like she'd accepted it. Or like she wanted me to think she had.
Then she bent down. My chest went tight. I thought she was going to lift the corner. If she lifted it, she'd see where I'd pressed the edge of paper against the floor, the tiny mark I'd made to remember which way the detector on the ceiling was angled. It wasn't much, just a pencil line and a folded receipt I'd slipped under the rug to weigh it down. But it was proof I'd been thinking. It was proof I hadn't forgotten what the man in the dark jacket and cap did when he reached for the white smoke detector.
She didn't lift it.
She smoothed it instead. She put her palm down, her red nails bright against the beige, and pushed the curled edge flat with two slow strokes. She used the side of her slipper to nudge the corner back under the sofa leg, straightening the line. The rug settled. The fold and the paper underneath stayed hidden. She patted it once, satisfied with the look, not the underneath.
"Keep your feet still when you sleep," she said. She stood up and wiped her hands together like she'd finished a chore. "I like this room neat."
I nodded. I didn't look down.
May you like
When she turned toward the kitchen, her blouse catching the daylight, I let my face do one thing. Just one. The corner of my mouth pulled in, not a smile, a held breath released. My eyes dropped to the rug and then away. My shoulders, which had been up near my ears all morning, sank a half inch back into the sofa cushions. She didn't see it. She was already at the counter, lining up the mail.
The trace was still there. Under the flat beige square, pressed safe. Her suspicion was still there too, a low hum behind her neat movements, but she hadn't searched. My lie had held for now, thin as it was, and the room stayed neat on top and secret underneath.
