Chapter 2: I Recorded What She Does
I was still holding onto his jacket when the front door clicked.
His hand had just lifted the tablet off the dark wood table. The blue screen lit the bottom of his chin. My fingers were bunched in the navy fabric near his waist and I didn't let go. Caleb hadn't moved from his chair. His fork was still over his plate with the mashed potatoes going cold.
The key turned. The white paneled door behind us opened and Vanessa stepped in, a grocery bag in one arm and her keys still in her hand. She was smiling at first, like she didn't see us.
"You're home early," she said to my dad.
My dad didn't answer right away. He held the black tablet with both hands. The light from it was shaking a little because his hands were.
Vanessa set the bag down on the cream chair. Her eyes went to me, then to Caleb, then to the tablet. Her smile thinned.
"What happened?" she asked. "Amara, why are you crying?"
My dad finally spoke. His voice was low and even.
"Wait in the kitchen, Vanessa," he said. He didn't look at her. He looked down at the blue screen. "Give me a minute with this."
She paused with her hand on the bag. I watched her mouth tighten. She glanced at the table, at the empty plate where my dinner should have been, at Caleb staring at his lap.
"Marcus, I can explain," she started.
He shook his head once, small. "Just wait. Please."
That was new. He had never told her to wait before. Usually he let her talk first.
She didn't argue. She stepped back toward the kitchen doorway, but she didn't go all the way in. She stood there with her arms crossed, watching us. The warm lamp light made the apartment feel too bright.
My dad's thumb moved across the tablet. He'd left it unlocked on the table for me and Caleb to use for games, and I had learned how to press the red circle myself. My heart was beating so loud I thought he could hear it.
He pressed play.
For a second there was just the sound of our kitchen. Then my own small voice came out of the tablet, tinny and far away.
The video showed the pantry. The white door with the little silver lock she had put on last month. I had held the tablet up with my own hands, and the picture shook a little. You could see my socks on the wooden floor.
On the screen, Vanessa's voice said, "I told you no. You don't get to eat right now."
Then my voice, smaller: "I'm hungry."
"Then you should have behaved," she said on the recording. "You'll eat when your dad gets home if you behave. Not before."
My dad's breathing changed. I felt it through his jacket where my hand was. His chest rose and held.
On the video, I turned the tablet toward the fridge. The handle had a strap around it. You could hear her step closer. "Stop recording and go to your room," she said. Then the screen went black.
Nobody in the dining room moved. The table lamp hummed.
My dad stared at the blue screen after it ended. His brow was still furrowed but his eyes weren't wide anymore. They narrowed, focused. His mouth closed. He swallowed.
Caleb shifted in his chair. The legs made a little screech on the wood floor.
My dad looked at him.
Caleb's hands were in his lap, tight around his fork. He didn't look at Vanessa in the doorway. He looked up at my dad, his chin tilted, his eyes worried the way they had been at the table since I asked for food.
My dad's voice was softer now. "Caleb. Has this been happening?"
Caleb's lip trembled. He glanced at me, just for a second, then back at my dad. He took a small breath before he spoke.
"She does this when you're at work," he said.
The words hung there exactly the way he'd said them before, quiet and apprehensive. He wasn't trying to be brave. He was just telling the truth because the tablet had said it first.
Vanessa made a sound from the doorway. "Marcus, that's not — that's out of context. She stole food after I told her no. I was teaching her—"
My dad lifted one hand, palm out, still holding the tablet in the other. He didn't raise his voice.
"Vanessa, stop."
His eyes went back to the tablet, then to me. I was still crying, but quieter now. Tears were on both my cheeks and my hand was still fisted in his jacket. He put his hand over mine, just for a moment. His palm was warm.
I saw it then, the change in his face up close. The shock from when he first walked in was gone. Now his eyebrows pulled down low and his jaw set. He looked down at the locked pantry in the video still paused on the screen, and his eyes had that focused concern, like he was finally seeing what he'd missed. And guilt. I didn't have the word for it then, but I felt it in how gently he held my hand, like he was sorry he'd needed a video to believe me.
He turned the tablet so Vanessa could see the paused picture of the locked pantry.
"You put a lock on the pantry," he said. It wasn't a question.
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Vanessa's arms uncrossed. Her hands went to her sides. She didn't answer.
And we all stayed right there in the dining room, the blue light still on between us, with nowhere left to pretend.
