Clara hates her immediately, the way predators hate a locked door.
“She sits in the dark,” Clara says one evening, voice coated in faux disgust.
“Who does that? She’s lazy. Or worse. People like that steal.”
And you hate yourself for how easily doubt slides into you, because grief makes a hungry space inside your mind, and suspicion is the fastest thing to fill it.
You tell yourself the cameras are for safety.
That’s the story you sell your own conscience while a security consultant walks you through “coverage zones” and “infrared angles” like you’re planning a military operation.
Twenty-six cameras, hidden inside smoke detectors, behind decorative vents, tucked into corners no one ever looks at.
Night vision. Cloud storage. Facial recognition. Audio capture.
A hundred thousand dollars of surveillance designed to calm your fear.
You don’t tell Lina, because if she’s innocent, you’ll feel guilty, and if she’s guilty, you’ll feel justified.
Either way, you’ll feel something other than grief, and that sounds like oxygen.
When the installer leaves, you stand in the nursery and look around as if the walls are now your allies.
You whisper, not to anyone in particular, “Now I’ll know.”
And the house, cold and gleaming, gives you nothing back.
For two weeks you don’t watch a single recording.
Work becomes your shelter, spreadsheets your sedative.
During the day you sign deals and smile at people who still believe you’re a powerful man, not a broken one.
At night you drift between the twins’ room and your empty bedroom, staring at the side of the bed Aurelia never returns to.
Clara moves through the house with the confidence of someone unpacking.
Lina moves like a shadow that only exists where she’s needed.
Mateo screams, Samuel sleeps, and you keep telling yourself colic will pass, time will soften everything.
But then a Tuesday rainstorm pins you awake, and the silence in the house feels heavier than the sky.
You pick up your tablet, open the secure feed, and tell yourself you’re just checking once.
Just one glance to reassure yourself.
Just enough to prove you’re not losing your mind.
The first camera feed is the hallway outside the nursery.
Dim, green-tinted night vision.
Nothing but the faint glow of a nightlight and the outline of framed photos you stopped looking at.
You switch to the nursery camera, and your throat tightens.
Lina is on the floor between the two cribs, not sprawled out in sleep, not scrolling her phone, not doing anything you were prepared to be angry about.
