Chapter 3: What Rosa Saw
The room went very still.
I looked at the maid.
She was still on the floor, my baby pressed against her chest, one hand curved around the back of the infant's head.
Her name was Rosa.
She had worked for us for two years.
I had never once heard her raise her voice.
"What do you mean it wasn't the first time?" I said.
Rosa looked at Vanessa before she answered.
That one glance told me everything about how afraid she had been to speak.
"Last Tuesday," Rosa said.
"You were at work.
Miss Vanessa asked me to take the baby upstairs.
When I came back down for the blanket, I heard the stroller wheels moving.
I ran back up.
The stroller was at the top of the stairs.
Miss Vanessa was standing two steps below it."
"She was probably just walking past," Vanessa said.
Her voice had changed.
The crying had stopped.
"Rosa has never liked me.
She's been looking for a reason—"
"She was pushing it," Rosa said.
"With one finger.
Slow.
Like she was testing how far it would go."
Vanessa turned to me.
"You're going to believe a maid over your own wife?"
I didn't answer her.
My older daughter — Priya, twenty-three, home from university for the week — was still holding the phone.
She had not lowered it once.
"Dad," she said.
"There's more on the footage."
"How much more?"
"Enough."
I sat down on the bottom stair.
The baby had started to make small sounds against Rosa's shoulder, the soft unfocused noises of a child who does not yet know what danger is.
"Play it," I said.
Priya scrolled back through the security app.
Our house had four cameras — front door, kitchen, living room, top of the staircase.
The staircase camera had a wide angle.
It caught everything.
The footage from Tuesday loaded.
I watched Vanessa walk up the stairs behind Rosa.
I watched Rosa go back down.
I watched Vanessa stand there for a moment, completely still, looking at the stroller.
Then she stepped toward it.
One finger.
Slow.
Like she was testing how far it would go.
Rosa's footsteps appeared at the bottom of the frame, running.
Vanessa stepped back before Rosa reached the top.
By the time Rosa was there, Vanessa was already three steps away, looking at her phone.
I pressed pause.
"How long have you known about Tuesday?" I asked Rosa.
"Since Tuesday," she said.
"I didn't know what to do.
I thought — maybe I was wrong.
Maybe I misread it.
But today I wasn't wrong.
Today I saw her face when she did it.
She wasn't frightened.
She wasn't surprised." Rosa's voice dropped.
"She looked like she was waiting to see what would happen."
Vanessa laughed.
It came out sharp and short, like a door slamming.
"This is insane," she said.
"You're all turning on me because of a grainy video and the word of a woman who has wanted me gone from the beginning.
I am your wife.
I am the one who has been here every day while you work.
I am the one who—"
"Sit down, Vanessa."
She stopped.
I had never spoken to her like that before.
Not once in three years of marriage.
I watched her register it — the flatness in my voice, the way I did not look away from her.
She sat down.
"Who were you texting?" I said.
Her jaw tightened.
"What?"
"On the footage.
Sixty seconds after the stroller nearly went down the stairs.
You were texting someone and smiling.
Who was it?"
"I was — I was letting my sister know everything was fine.
I was scared and I needed to tell someone—"
"Give me your phone."
The color left her face.
"You don't trust me," she said.
"After everything, you don't trust me."
"Give me your phone, Vanessa."
She stood up instead.
Picked up her bag from the chair by the door.
Held the strap with both hands.
"I'm not doing this," she said.
"I'm not standing here being interrogated in my own home."
She walked toward the front door.
Priya looked at me.
I looked at Priya.
"Dad," she said quietly.
"I already screenshotted the texts.
She didn't know the security app mirrors to the cloud."
I stood up slowly.
"What did the texts say?"
May you like
Priya turned the phone around so I could read the screen.
The name at the top of the message thread was not her sister.
