And I had, in the way of a first-time mother going back to full-time work, bought a small camera from a big-box store and put it on the third shelf of the bookcase in the living room, behind a row of paperbacks, angled at the room.

I had told Mitchell about it.

He had said it was overkill and had then forgotten about it inside a week.

The sitter had left in the summer of 2023.

I had never taken the camera down.

It was plugged into the outlet behind the bookcase, which nobody had unplugged in nineteen months, because nobody unplugs a thing they have forgotten exists.