He found the instruction manual in his email, pulled a ladder from the utility closet, and brought the camera down carefully. The little card was still inside. He borrowed a reader from the computer in his office and opened the files. There were several recordings, broken into short pieces by motion alerts, all stamped with the same date. He saw himself leaving earlier that afternoon. He saw Vanessa carrying the box to the living room, sorting Mom's things, and looking toward the driveway. He saw me enter with a glass of water. Then he clicked the recording that began at 3:17 p.m.
He later told me he watched it four times. On the first viewing, he looked for the moment when I grabbed Vanessa because he assumed he had missed it. On the second, he began to realize there was no such moment. On the third, he turned up the volume. He heard Vanessa say, "As long as you live here, he will never put me first." He heard me tell her that my father didn't have to choose. He watched her step backward without being touched, glance toward the front windows, and throw herself against the sofa. She screamed for me to stop while I stood completely still with my mother's album in my arms. The camera caught every movement, including the instant she checked to see whether Dad had reached the door.
Then my father watched himself walk in and take her side. He watched himself tell me not to mention my mother. He watched me lay the album down. He heard my voice shake when I asked whether he had seen me touch Vanessa. And at the very end, he saw me look toward the camera while Vanessa's face went pale. The recording did more than prove a lie. It showed him the moment he became part of it.
He copied the video to two drives and saved another copy to a private account before he did anything else. I was grateful for that later, because Vanessa made one final attempt to erase the incident. When Dad went upstairs with the tablet in his hand, she was packing a weekend bag. She claimed she wanted to spend a few days with her sister so he could recover from the stress. He asked why the living room camera had been disconnected. She said the internet was unreliable. He asked whether she had touched the power cord. She said she had pulled it out during cleaning, but that was after the argument, when she couldn't bear to look at the room.
"After the argument?" he repeated. "So you knew it might have recorded?"
She stared at him for a moment. "Marcus, what are you accusing me of?"