The baby monitor company retained recordings for ninety days.

I had forgotten that.

The account was still active because I had never canceled the subscription.

We sat at the kitchen table.

Me.

Rachel.

Denise.

Aaron joined by video call.

I logged in.

There were hundreds of motion-triggered clips.

Most showed nothing important.

Lily sleeping.

Me checking on her.

Rebecca adjusting equipment.

Vanessa carrying laundry.

Then we found a clip from fifty-six days earlier.

Vanessa entered Lily’s room at 1:08 p.m.

Lily was lying in bed.

The microphone picked up their voices.

“Get up.”

“I’m tired.”

“You’ve been in bed all morning.”

“Rebecca said I should rest.”

“Rebecca isn’t your mother.”

Lily sat up slowly.

Vanessa pulled the blanket away.

“Downstairs.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Then stop behaving like a baby.”

The clip ended when they left the room.

Motion detection did not follow them.

We searched the next clips.

At 2:11 p.m., Lily returned.

Alone.

She was crying.

Her hands shook as she climbed into bed.

She whispered something.

We turned up the volume.

“I’m sorry, Mommy.”

I stopped the video.

Rachel put her face in her hands.

Lily’s mother had been dead five years.

My daughter had returned from whatever happened downstairs and apologized to a dead woman.

Denise asked me to continue.

The next significant clip was two weeks later.

Lily was vomiting into a basin.

Vanessa stood in the doorway.

Instead of helping, she said, “You knew I just cleaned.”

Lily could barely answer.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re always sorry after.”

Then Vanessa took the basin away.

The recording ended.

Forty minutes later, Lily appeared on camera wearing different pajamas.

She moved slowly.

There was a dark stain on one sleeve.

I could not identify it.

Denise made notes.

Another clip showed Vanessa entering with medication.

She held a pill in her fingers.

Lily reached for it.

Vanessa pulled her hand back.

“What do you say?”

“Please.”

“And?”

“Thank you.”

“And?”

Lily looked confused.

Vanessa waited.

Finally Lily whispered, “I’ll be good.”

Only then did Vanessa hand her the pill.

I stood so quickly the chair fell backward.

“I’m done.”

Aaron’s voice came through the laptop.

“Daniel.”

“I can’t watch this.”

“You don’t have to watch every clip right now.”

“She made her earn medicine.”

“We have it.”

“She made my daughter beg for medicine.”

Rachel grabbed my arm.

I was breathing too fast.

Denise closed the laptop.

“Go upstairs.”

“What?”

“Go sit with Lily.”

“I need to—”

“We have copies.”

She looked directly at me.

“You are her father before you are a witness.”

That sentence stopped me.

I went upstairs.

Lily was lying on her bed coloring.

She smiled when I entered.

“Look.”

She held up a drawing.

It showed a house.

Two stick figures stood outside.

One tall.

One small.

A giant yellow sun filled the corner.

“Who’s that?”

“You and me.”

I sat beside her.

“Where’s Aunt Rachel?”

“She’s inside making bad eggs.”

I laughed despite everything.

Lily smiled.

Then she looked at me carefully.

“Are you sad?”

“A little.”

“Because of me?”

There it was again.

I put the drawing aside.

“No.”

She watched my face.

“I’m sad because I wish I had understood some things sooner.”

She thought about that.

“Like what?”

“Like how scared you were.”

Lily looked at her crayons.

“I didn’t want you to be alone.”

I could not speak.

She continued.

“If you made Vanessa leave, you wouldn’t have a wife.”

My daughter had endured cruelty because she was worried I might be lonely.

I took her hand.

“Being alone is not the worst thing that can happen to someone.”

“What is?”

I looked at her.

“Living with someone who makes the people you love afraid.”