Both judgments were catastrophically wrong, because a performance is designed to be judged, and therefore reveals only what its performer wishes to reveal.

The camera, indifferent and constant, saw past all of it, to the two women underneath, and the two women underneath bore almost no resemblance to the two performances I had spent months believing.

I had gone looking, with my hidden cameras, to catch a thief.

What I actually caught was my own lifelong habit of mistaking performance for character, and it very nearly cost me my children.

Chapter 4 — The Security Room