I lay on the couch in the living room.
Not in our bed. I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie next to him.
I lay on the couch and stared at the little white dome in the corner of the ceiling.
The camera.
Brandon’s idea. For peace of mind.
At 5:42, Theo woke up.
I changed him. I gave him a bottle. I rocked him.
At 6:15, the twins woke up. Ivy had wet the bed.
At 6:30, Mabel came downstairs.
“Pancakes?” she said.
“Pancakes,” I said.
I made pancakes.
I watched Mabel eat them. She cut them into perfect squares. She didn’t let the syrup touch the strawberries.
“Mabel,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Last night,” I said. “When Mommy was in the shower.”
She stopped eating.
She looked at me. Very carefully.
“Were you good?” I asked.
She looked at the hallway.
Toward the bedroom. Where Brandon was still asleep.
She looked back at me.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “We were good.”
“Did anything happen?”
Mabel looked at her pancakes.
“June bumped her head,” she said. “I did the peas.”
“You did?”
“Like you do,” Mabel said. “In the freezer door. I had to stand on my tiptoes.”
“And Theo?”
“He lost his binky,” Mabel said. “I sang him your song. And I got his diaper. But I couldn’t reach.”
She looked up at me.
“Did Daddy tell you we were good?” she asked.
I looked at my daughter.
Four years old. In her pink unicorn pajamas. With syrup on her chin.
Waiting.
“No, baby,” I said. “Daddy didn’t tell me.”
Mabel’s face fell.
“But I saw,” I said.
She looked at me.
“I saw everything,” I said. “On the camera. I saw you sing to Theo. I saw you get the peas for June. I saw you get the diaper.”
Her eyes got big.
“You saw?”
“I saw,” I said. “You were so good, Mabel. You were the best big sister in the whole world.”
She didn’t smile.
She looked at me for a long time.
“Then why was Daddy mad?” she whispered.
I didn’t have an answer.
Not one I could give a four-year-old.
Brandon came downstairs at 7:00.
He’d showered. Twenty-five minutes. With the door closed. With music.
He came into the kitchen in his work clothes. He kissed the kids on the tops of their heads.
He picked up a pancake off Mabel’s plate.
“Morning,” he said to me. Cold. Still angry.
“Brandon,” I said. “Before you go. I need you to watch something.”
He looked at me.
“I’m going to be late.”
“It’s twenty minutes,” I said.
He stared at me.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said.
“Twenty minutes,” I said again. “You can spare twenty minutes.”
I handed him my phone.
The app was open. The video was cued up.
Living Room — Tuesday — 7:00 PM.
He looked at the screen.
He looked at me.
His face changed.
Not anger.
Something else.
Something I’d never seen on his face before.
Fear.
“Erin,” he said.
“Watch it,” I said.
“I don’t need to—”
“Watch it,” I said.
I’d never used that voice with him.
Not in seven years.
It was the voice I used at the children’s hospital. With the parents who wouldn’t do their kids’ exercises at home. The voice that meant I’m not asking.
He sat down at the kitchen table.
He watched it.
I took the kids to the living room. I put on Bluey. I put Theo in the playpen with the green pacifier. I sat on the couch with Mabel.
I could hear the video from the kitchen.
Tinny. Faint.
Daddy, Theo lost his binky.
Go sit down, Mabes.
You are my sunshine. My only sunshine.
Daddy! June hit her head!
She’s fine. Kids bump their heads.
Mommy will change you. When she’s done. I put your diaper right here. So she doesn’t have to get it.
Daddy, are you going to tell Mommy we were good?
When Mommy comes back, we have to be extra good. So you don’t get mad at her.
Then silence.
Brandon didn’t come out of the kitchen for a long time.
He was supposed to leave at 7:45.
At 8:15, he was still sitting at the kitchen table.
I went in.
He was sitting with my phone in his hands. The video was paused. On the last frame.
Mabel. On the rug. With her hands folded in her lap.
Sitting very, very still.
Brandon was crying.
I’d seen him cry twice. When Mabel was born. And when his grandfather died.
He was sitting at our kitchen table in his work clothes, holding my phone, crying.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
He didn’t look up.
“I didn’t know she was doing that,” he said. “I didn’t—I didn’t see any of it. The peas. The diaper. The song. I didn’t see.”
“I know you didn’t,” I said. “You were playing a game.”
He flinched.
“It was twenty minutes,” he said. “I just—I was tired. I’d been at work. I just wanted twenty minutes.”
“So did I,” I said.
He looked up at me.
“Brandon,” I said. “I’ve been awake since 5:42 yesterday morning. I slept three hours. I hadn’t showered since Saturday. I asked you for nineteen minutes. To wash two days of throw-up and oatmeal off my body.”
He didn’t say anything.
“And you didn’t watch them,” I said. “Mabel did. Our four-year-old did. She did everything I would have done. Everything. The binky. The song. The peas. The diaper.”
My voice broke.
“She did my job, Brandon,” I said. “For nineteen minutes. While you sat four feet away and played a game.”
“And then,” I said, “you heard the water turn off. And you put your phone away. And you changed your face.”
He closed his eyes.
“I watched you do it,” I said. “Four seconds. You went from relaxed to furious. Like turning on a light.”
“Erin—”
“And you told me they were terrors,” I said. “You told me they were screaming and climbing on your legs and fighting over toys. You told me I was selfish. You told me I ruined your night with my spa break.”
“And I believed you,” I said.
He put his face in his hands.
“I apologized,” I said. “I told you I was sorry. I told you I’d never do it again. I put the kids to bed. I did all the dishes. Alone. While you went to bed angry.”
I sat down across from him.
“And our daughter sat on the rug with her hands folded,” I said. “Being extra good. So you wouldn’t get mad at me.”
“How many times?” I said.
He looked up.
“How many times has that happened?” I said. “That you told me the kids were terrible. That you told me I was selfish. When they were fine. When you just didn’t want to be bothered.”
He didn’t answer.
“Because she knew,” I said. “Mabel knew. Before I even came back. She knew you’d be mad. She knew you’d yell at me. She said we have to be extra good. She said it like a rule. Like something she’d learned.”
I swallowed.
“Kids don’t learn something like that from one time, Brandon,” I said.
He was quiet for a very long time.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I don’t know how many times. I didn’t—I never thought about it.”
He looked at the phone. At Mabel. Frozen. On the rug.
“I think,” he said slowly, “I think I’ve been doing it since the twins.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer right away.
He looked out the window. At the backyard. At the swing set I put together myself in May while he was at a golf tournament.
“Because if they were terrible,” he said quietly, “then it was hard. And if it was hard, then I didn’t have to do it.”
He looked at me.
“And if it was easy,” he said, “then I should have been doing it all along.”
I didn’t say anything.
