Chapter 3 - The Baby Monitor Remembered What We Didn’t
We had a portable baby monitor camera in the living room.
I had forgotten about it.
Lily sometimes slept in a bassinet there during the day, so the camera uploaded motion clips to a cloud account.
Ryan remembered the next afternoon.
We opened the app with Detective Marisol Vega present.
10:13 a.m.
I walked toward the laundry room carrying a basket.
Linda sat on the sofa with Lily.
10:14.
Linda looked toward the hallway.
Then toward the stairs leading to Ryan’s office.
She lifted Lily.
10:15.
Linda carried her out of frame toward the downstairs bathroom.
I did not appear again until 10:18.
Running.
The scream had begun seconds earlier.
Linda’s claim that she “caught Emma putting Lily in the toilet” became nearly impossible to reconcile with the video.
She had taken Lily toward the bathroom herself while I was elsewhere.
Detective Vega asked:
“Mrs. Carter, why would Linda do this?”
“I don’t know.”
Ryan stared at the paused image of his stepmother carrying his daughter.
He looked physically ill.
Then another clip played.
Earlier that morning.
Linda standing beside the bassinet while I made coffee.
She held her phone toward me.
I had assumed she was photographing Lily.
Audio caught her quietly saying:
“Emma forgot the bottle again.”
I turned.
“What bottle?”
Ryan looked away.
“Linda has been... documenting things.”
The room became very still.
“What things?”
“She thought you weren’t coping.”
“How long?”
“A few weeks.”
I stared at my husband.
“And you knew?”
“She sent me photos.”
“What photos?”
“You sleeping.”
I almost laughed.
“When?”
“Afternoons.”
“I feed Lily at one in the morning, three, five, and seven.”
“I know.”
“Apparently somebody forgot to document that.”
Detective Vega wrote something down.
I looked at Ryan.
“What else?”
He swallowed.
“She said you cried in the grocery store.”
“My mother died last year. They were playing her favorite song.”
“I know.”
“Anything else?”
“She said you forgot Lily’s pediatric appointment.”
“I didn’t.”
Ryan frowned.
“Yes, you did. Linda took her.”
“No.”
I reached for my phone.
The appointment had originally been scheduled for Thursday.
Linda persuaded Ryan to move it to Wednesday because she was available to help.
Nobody told me.
I had not forgotten an appointment.
The appointment had been moved.
Suddenly every ordinary exhausted moment of new motherhood felt contaminated.
May you like
Linda had not merely watched me.
She had been building a version of me.
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