Chapter 9
The housing hung open above the rug and I saw it.
He had stepped down off the chair to wipe up the water I'd knocked over, and that left the detector dangling from its wires. The cover was still tilted down, white plastic with the little ring of screw holes around the edge. Inside, where I expected just wires and a battery, there was a small dark slot. And in the slot, a card.
It was no bigger than my thumbnail, black with a tiny gold edge catching the daylight. It sat flush inside the white housing, like it belonged there. I was still on my knees where I'd fallen when he told me to stay back, and from down there I could see straight up into it.
For a second I didn't understand what I was looking at. Then I did. That was the camera. That was why he'd reached for it at the end, why his gloved hand had covered it. It hadn't just been watching. It had been saving.
He had his back to me, dabbing at the spill with the dish towel. The woman stood in the doorway to the kitchen with her arms crossed, her white blouse still perfectly tucked.
"What did you do," she said. She wasn't loud. Her voice stayed low and even, the way it had when she held my jaw on the sofa. That control scared me more than shouting would have.
I felt my eyes water. I pressed my palms flat on the dark wood floor.
"My cup slipped," I whispered. "I'm sorry."
She looked from me to him, and I watched her decide what mattered more. The mess on the floor or the thing hanging open over our heads.
"Get it cleaned properly," she told him, not me. "We don't have time for her being clumsy."
He nodded, kept wiping. He didn't look up. The towel made a soft squeak on the floorboards.
I stayed still and breathed through my nose. I could hear the faint tick the detector housing made as it swayed a little on its wires. Every swing gave me another glimpse of that dark card. My heart beat so hard I thought they could hear it.
I remembered the way she'd gripped my cheek that afternoon on the gray sofa, the red nails digging in, the small dark object in her other hand. I'd thought no one would ever know what that felt like because it happened when the door was shut and it was just us. Now there was a different object, small and dark, tucked up there above the rug where nobody was supposed to look. It had seen it. All of it. The way she'd held the thing, the way she'd pulled me close, the way I'd curled into the arm of the sofa and cried with my head down. It was all there, on that little card smaller than a postage stamp.
The woman stepped closer to me and I flinched without meaning to.
"Stand up," she said. "You're getting the floor wetter with your pajamas."
I got to my feet. My pink pajamas stuck to my knees where the water had soaked in. She reached out like she was going to straighten my collar, and I went rigid, but she just brushed at a spot on my sleeve with two fingers and let go.
"Go stand in the corner and stay out of the way," she said. "You're distracting him."
I moved to the corner by the white door where I could still see the ceiling. From there the card was just a dark line inside the white housing. He finished with the towel and stood up, holding the damp cloth in his gloved hand.
"You left it open," she said to him, finally looking up and noticing the hanging cover.
He followed her eyes. For a second he stared at the open detector and his shoulders tightened.
"I was going to close it after," he said.
"Well, don't leave it like that. She'll stare at it."
He stepped back onto the chair. The chair creaked. He lifted his hands toward the housing again, and I thought this was it — he would push the card out, slip it into his jacket pocket, and the proof would be gone. My hands balled into fists at my sides.
But he didn't take the card. He just held the housing steady with one hand and reached for the screw he'd set on the top of the door frame with the other. His glove made it awkward to pick up.
The woman made a sharp sound.
"Don't do it with the gloves on," she said. "You'll strip it. And you're tracking water."
She grabbed his wrist — gently, but firm — and pulled his hand back down.
"Leave it until the floor dries. I don't want you falling and breaking something else."
He hesitated, his hand still up near the detector. The card sat there, open to the room, maybe six feet above me, visible if you knew to look. I held my breath and looked at the floor, at the beige rug, anywhere but up.
He stepped down again.
"Fine," he said. His voice was low. "I'll get it in five minutes."
The woman turned back to me. "You heard him. You stay right there. Don't touch anything."
May you like
I nodded. I didn't say anything. I kept my eyes down and counted my breaths the way I'd practiced the night before when I was trying not to cry and make noise.
They walked toward the kitchen together, arguing in quiet voices about the towel and the mess. The detector stayed open above the rug, its white cover hanging like a loose tooth, the dark slot inside holding the thing I now knew I had to keep safe without ever touching it myself.
