The Security Footage
Five days after the funeral, I sat alone in the living room, barely moving, wearing the same oversized sweatshirt I’d slept in for two straight days.
I hadn’t eaten. Jenna had gone back to work.
The house felt painfully quiet without Ava. No cartoons, no toys on the floor, no tiny voice asking for apple juice.
Then my phone rang.
It was Miss Greenwood again.
“Mrs. Carter… I’m sorry to bother you. I don’t even know how to explain this.” Her voice was trembling. “I was reviewing the security footage, rewatching the day Ava got sick…”
My heart started pounding.
“And what did you see?”
She hesitated, then cleared her throat.
“I’m going to send the footage to your phone as soon as I copy it. Please watch it. I feel uncomfortable saying this, but… your husband is lying to you.”
My stomach twisted. The room suddenly felt cold.
A few minutes later, the video arrived.
My hands shook as I pressed play.
At first, everything looked normal. Mark helped Ava out of the car at the daycare while she held her stuffed rabbit against her chest.
Then a woman stepped into the frame.
Tall, brunette, wearing a cream-colored coat. She smiled at my daughter as if she already knew her.
I frowned.
The woman crouched down and handed Ava a bottled drink with a café label on it. My daughter smiled and took it happily.
Then the woman touched Mark’s arm.
Not casually.
Intimately.
My stomach dropped.
They guided Ava inside together. Then my husband walked back to his car with the woman, smiling.
I rewound the clip. Zoomed in.
My phone nearly slipped from my hands.
I recognized her immediately.
Lauren.
Mark’s coworker.
The same woman I’d met once at his company Christmas party the previous year. The same woman whose name had started appearing on his phone late at night, before he suddenly became protective of it.
The air left my lungs.
Crying, I whispered to no one: “What was she doing at Ava’s daycare? This can’t be true. I knew this wasn’t an accident.”
