Chapter 2 - THE CAMERA HISTORY
I did not take Roger back to the house.
I drove to my mother’s place instead.
She opened the door in a robe, took one look at my face, then looked past me at Roger sleeping against my shoulder.
She didn't ask questions.
She simply stepped aside.
That was the kind of mother she was.
Questions could wait.
A child couldn't.
I carried Roger into the spare bedroom and tucked him under three blankets. When I touched his feet, they were still cold.
My mother noticed.
“What happened?”
I looked at her.
“My husband was with Celina.”
Her face changed.
Then I added, “Roger was sleeping on the kitchen floor.”
She covered her mouth.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then my phone buzzed.
Gideon.
Again.
And again.
And again.
I turned it face down.
My mother stared at it.
“Are you going to answer him?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I sat beside Roger until his breathing became slow and steady.
Then I remembered something.
The security cameras.
We had installed them eighteen months earlier after a package theft in our neighborhood. There was one pointed at the front porch, another covering the driveway, one in the hallway downstairs, and one in the kitchen.
Gideon had insisted we needed them.
At the time, I'd laughed.
“Are you expecting a burglary?”
He had kissed my forehead.
“I'm expecting life to get complicated.”
I had never imagined he would become the complication.
I opened the camera app on my phone.
The kitchen camera showed the previous night.
At 11:47 p.m., Roger appeared on the screen.
Barefoot.
Holding his elephant.
He stood beside the kitchen doorway.
I leaned closer.
At first, I thought he was alone.
Then Gideon entered the frame.
He was wearing a gray T-shirt and sweatpants.
He crouched in front of Roger.
Even without sound, I could tell Gideon was talking.
Roger pointed toward the stairs.
Gideon shook his head.
Then he pointed toward the kitchen.
Roger looked frightened.
Gideon placed a finger against his lips.
My heart started pounding.
I turned up the volume.
The recording crackled.
Then I heard my husband's voice.
“Stay here, buddy.”
Roger said something too softly to understand.
Gideon answered.
“Daddy will come back.”
“Can I come with you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you're supposed to be sleeping.”
Roger looked toward the camera.
Then Gideon did something that made my blood run cold.
He walked over to the kitchen doorway and turned off the light.
The room became almost completely dark.
Then he walked upstairs.
Roger remained alone.
I watched him sit on the floor.
He hugged the elephant.
Five years old.
Barefoot.
Alone.
At midnight.
I stopped the video.
My mother stood behind me.
“What is it?”
I couldn't answer.
I pressed play again.
At 12:18 a.m., Roger got up.
He walked toward the stairs.
Then he stopped.
He looked upward.
A few seconds later, he sat down again.
At 12:41, he lay down on the tile.
At 12:52, he pulled his pajama shirt over his feet.
At 1:03, he fell asleep.
I covered my mouth.
My mother whispered, “Oh, God.”
But I wasn't watching the screen anymore.
I was thinking about the sentence Roger had said in the car.
Daddy told me to wait there.
He hadn't wandered downstairs.
He had obeyed his father.
I continued watching.
At 2:37 a.m., Gideon finally returned.
Not alone.
Celina followed him.
They walked past Roger without even looking down.
They entered the guest room.
The door closed.
I stared at the screen for nearly a minute.
Then I rewound it.
Again.
And again.
I wasn't looking for proof of the affair.
I already had that.
I was looking for something else.
How many times?
How many nights?
How many times had my son waited on that floor?
I changed the date.
The previous night.
Then the night before that.
Then the week before.
My hands began shaking.
There was another recording.
And another.
And another.
The first time Celina appeared on the camera was four months earlier.
Four months.
My husband had not cheated once.
He had built a routine.
At first, Celina came through the front door.
Later, she started parking around the corner.
She would arrive between 11:00 p.m. and midnight.
Gideon would meet her downstairs.
And on three separate nights, I watched him lead Roger into the kitchen.
One night, he gave him a blanket.
Another night, he gave him a tablet.
But on the most recent nights, there was no blanket.
No tablet.
Just the cold floor.
I kept scrolling.
Then I saw something I wasn't expecting.
A black SUV.
It appeared on the driveway camera at 1:16 a.m., two nights before.
The driver stayed inside.
Someone got out.
A man.
He didn't approach the front door.
Instead, he walked around the side of the house.
I froze the frame.
The face wasn't visible.
I went back one night.
Same SUV.
Same time.
Same man.
Another night.
Again.
The same vehicle.
The same man.
He wasn't there for Celina.
He never entered through the front door.
He was meeting someone.
And whoever he was meeting knew how to avoid the cameras.
I called my mother's name.
She came closer.
“Who's that?”
“I don't know.”
I zoomed in.
The man turned slightly.
There was a logo on the jacket.
A small white triangle.
I didn't recognize it.
Then I noticed something else.
Every time the SUV appeared, Gideon left the house for exactly eleven minutes.
Eleven minutes.
He would come back carrying nothing.
The black SUV would disappear.
Then Gideon would return upstairs.
I looked at my mother.
“Why would someone be meeting Gideon outside my house at two in the morning?”
She shook her head.
“I don't know.”
I looked at the screen again.
And suddenly, I remembered something.
Six months earlier, Gideon had started telling me his company was having financial problems.
He'd said contracts were delayed.
Payroll was tight.
He'd asked me to stop questioning some unusual withdrawals from our joint account.
I had believed him.
Because I was his wife.
Because I thought marriage meant giving someone the benefit of the doubt.
Now I wondered if I'd been giving him exactly what he needed.
Cover.
My phone buzzed.
This time it wasn't Gideon.
It was Celina.
A message.
Please don't tell Mom yet.
I stared at it.
Then another message appeared.
There's something you need to know about Gideon.
I typed:
What?
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Then:
He told me Roger wasn't his only reason for needing you out of the house.
I sat perfectly still.
What does that mean?
No response.
I called.
She didn't answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
Then my mother noticed my expression.
“What did she say?”
I turned the phone toward her.
Before she could read the messages, my phone buzzed again.
A new text from Celina.
Bernice, don't go back to the house. Gideon knows you're watching the cameras.
I felt the blood leave my face.
Because I had never told Gideon I was watching them.
And the camera app had been connected only to my phone.
Unless—
May you like
Someone else had access.
Someone else was watching too.
