Chapter 4
Chapter Four
BLIND SPOTS
It’s morning, and Gavin leaves for work like nothing is happening.
He kisses Noah on the head.
He tells me he has a long day.
He asks if I need anything before he goes.
“No,” I say with a smile that is a little less forced than I expect it to be.
But Gavin’s eyes hit me hard.
My husband. The father of my son.
How? Why?
I stand at the front window with Noah on my hip and Gavin backs out of the driveway. I take Noah’s little, innocent hand and wave.
That makes Gavin smile.
I wait then for Gavin’s car to disappear out of view.
I lock the front door.
Not because I’m afraid of someone getting in.
Because I need to know I’m alone.
Noah is really awake this morning and super cheerful. He’s in the stage now where everything becomes a toy.
My necklace. The drawstring on my sweatshirt. The corner of my phone case.
I settle him into his highchair with pieces of small-cut banana and cereal puffs.
I make more coffee.
I open my laptop at the kitchen table.
The nanny cam is no longer on the counter.
I stare at the spot where it was, curling my lip. My eyes move around a little.
I know it’s back in the living room where it can keep an eye on things.
And the simple fact that Paige knows there’s a nanny cam… what point does it serve then?
I cannot think the words nanny cam without seeing Gavin’s hand on Paige’s wrist.
At the same time, I’m grateful the nanny cam is nowhere in sight. I don’t need to be spied on right now. I’m the one doing the spying.
No. Not spying.
I’m… collecting…
I already know Gavin deleted yesterday's footage.
That’s not what I’m looking for right now.
I want to know whether the system remembers what he did.
Gavin chose this camera because it was supposed to track everything.
Motion. Access. Storage. Devices.
I vividly remember him bragging about it while installing it.
At the time, I stopped listening after the third explanation about encryption.
Now I wish I had listened more carefully.
I log into the camera account through the desktop site.
The app only shows clips.
The website… has more…
I move through menus.
Storage. Devices. Users. Permissions.
At first, I find nothing useful.
No deleted folder.
No recovered footage.
No obvious archive.
No magical collection of proof waiting for me.
Part of me… is relieved.
Part of me is angry.
I keep going.
Then I find a section called Device Activity and I click it.
The page is full of boring system entries.
Camera connected. Camera disconnected. Motion detection enabled. Motion detection paused. Account accessed. Clip deleted.
I almost close it because it looks meaningless.
Then I notice how often motion detection has been paused.
Not yesterday.
Before yesterday.
I scroll back one week.
Then two.
Then a month.
The camera goes offline for short stretches at a time.
Thirty-eight minutes. Forty-six minutes.
Fifty-one minutes.
Then it comes back.
No outage notice.
No wi-fi failure.
No system error.
A manual pause.
I open the family calendar in another tab.
My operations mind is in full gear now.
Noah makes a noise and then claps for himself.
I pause, go right into mom mode, and I look at him and clap with him.
He sets his focus back to smushing banana against his tray and I go back to focusing on dates.
Tuesday. Paige works.
Thursday. Paige works.
The following Tuesday.
Paige works again.
I keep scrolling.
The same pattern repeats.
The camera pauses during Paige’s shifts.
Not every shift.
Specific ones.
Mostly afternoons.
Noah makes a noise and I look at him again.
He smiles at me.
Noah… no…
I open his sleep tracker.
I hate myself right now for doing this.
I hate my husband even more when the times line up.
The camera usually goes dark through Noah’s longest nap.
I remember the front door lock.
Gavin insisted on that too.
No keys for Paige.
Her own access code.
Safer, he told me.
Easier to track.
I open the smart lock app.
I search the same dates.
Paige’s code shows her arriving in the morning.
That is normal.
Then Gavin’s code appears in the afternoon.
That is not.
He enters while the camera is paused.
He leaves before it comes back online.
Again. And again.
And again.
I stare at the screen until the numbers start to blur.
This is not spontaneous.
It’s not one reckless kiss.
This is a fucking schedule.
They built this schedule around Noah’s naps.
Around my cafe shifts.
Around the hours Gavin knew I would not come home.
They did not just betray me.
They organized it.
That is the part that hurts in a place I cannot reach.
Gavin knows how hard I worked to build Noah’s routine.
He knows how carefully I track naps because sleep affects everything.
He uses that same routine… as cover.
I open a blank spreadsheet, going even deeper into operations mode.
I create columns.
Date
Paige Scheduled
Camera Paused
Gavin Entered
Gavin Left
Noah Asleep
At first, I feel ridiculous.
I feel cold and clinical.
The familiarity of all hits me as this is what I used to do on a daily basis.
Take scattered information. Find the pattern. Remove emotion. Build the truth.
I enter the first date. Then the second. Then the third.
Noah bangs both hands on the tray.
I gave him more cereal puffs without looking away from the screen.
I check our shared calendar.
Gavin has recurring blocks marked Private Client Call.
The entries match several of the camera pauses.
I used to respect those blocks.
I made sure not to call him.
I kept things quiet, even rearranged appointments.
Now I realize the calls were not private.
They were just not for me.
I sit back and breathe.
I do not have more video.
I do not need more video.
The kiss proves the affair.
The records prove the routine.
The camera logs. The door codes. The calendar. Noah’s naps.
Every system Gavin installed to protect our family now tells me exactly how he used our home against me.
Noah drops a cereal puff on the floor.
I pick it up and kiss the top of his head.
I save the spreadsheet under a new name.
Household Schedule
Boring enough that Gavin will never open it.
I then upload a copy to my new email account.
I pick up Noah, walk him to the kitchen, and wipe his hands and face.
Then as I stroll through the living room, I glance at the nanny cam.
The camera did not miss what Gavin was doing.
He made sure it looked away.
Yesterday was not the first time he came home to Paige.
It was only the first time their routine failed.