I hold my breath to keep from crying out.
The red light. I think where else I have seen one. I don’t turn away, but I count the places in my head.
The playroom next to Dolly.
The living room in the corner that faces the front door.
The dark room.
This hallway.
The corner of my bedroom.
I ease the air out of my lungs, then take more in to slow my pulse.
“I see.” This is all I can manage to say.
So he is watching us, always. I think about the day I went for a walk. It was not a coincidence that he came home in time to stop me. He knew I had left because he saw me leave.
The cameras are everywhere.
And the cameras are feeding to him live. There is internet here, somewhere.
“Go get your schoolwork, then. We don’t want to break any more rules.”
Alice leaves and I turn my face from the camera in my room. I feel tears wanting to come but they will cause my body to tremble and he will know. He will see.
He watches me sleep. He watches me sleep with Alice. That is why he leaves us alone in this house together.
He sees everything.
Alice returns. She lays out her work and gets started. She can see that I am upset.
“Oh, don’t be scared!” she says. “You don’t need to worry.”
I regain my composure.
“Why is that, Alice?” I ask her.
“Because Dolly can see that you’re being a very good mommy.”
I smile. And inside, the defiance grows tenfold.
I will use this. I will use the cameras. I don’t know how.
But I will find a way.
18
Day fourteen
It was an accident.
Those words had never left Nic’s mouth. She’d heard them used by everyone in her life. Her father. The grief counselor. Teachers, before she got expelled.
She’d thought of it the way she’d thought of the wordsdied unexpectedlywhen someone committed suicide. Or overdosed.
No sense adding to the pain of the survivors by saying what really happened.
