THE CAMERA ABOVE THE MAT
“Is there a camera?” Beatrice asked.
The hanging bulb threw a shadow across her face as she stared at the ceiling. I kept my finger raised until Thomas followed it.
Nell’s cries came in short, ragged bursts. Thomas took one step toward her, then stopped at the edge of the broken ceramic. A jagged piece lay against the corner of the mat, close to her bare foot.
“Don’t move her through that,” I said. My lip throbbed around the words. “There’s glass—ceramic, I mean. Let me clear a path.”
Thomas looked down at me. His hand was still open at his side.
“I’ll get her,” he said.
He went around the other end of the mat and lifted Nell against his chest. She caught a fistful of his polo shirt. He checked her arms, her legs, and the soles of her feet, turning each one toward the oven light.
“Is she cut?” I asked.
He shook his head.
Beatrice gave a little laugh that stopped almost as soon as it began. “Thomas, this is ridiculous. Your daughter is fine.”
Nell buried her face in his shoulder.
Beatrice pointed at me again. “I walked in and saw her with that jar. I told her to be careful, but she dropped it.”
“You were holding it over Nell,” I said.
“I most certainly was not.”
Thomas shifted Nell higher. “Enough. We’ll look at the camera.”
Beatrice’s fingers tightened on her scarf. “Surely we can discuss this without making a production of it.”
“You said she did it,” Thomas replied. “The camera should show that.”
For the first time since he’d come through the door, Beatrice didn’t answer him.
I pushed myself up on one elbow. My palm landed in flour tracked across the tile, and a sharp pain ran along my jaw. I stayed where I was.
Thomas took out his phone with his free hand. “Where does it record?”
“The office,” I said. “On the little monitor beside the safe.”
He frowned. “I thought that camera only covered the register.”
“The one over the register does. This one was put in last month, after someone came through the back door at night.”
Our boss had shown me both feeds the morning the second camera went up. I’d stood under it waving a dish towel while she checked the screen.
Thomas looked toward the office door, then down at Nell. “Can you stand?”
I could have taken his hand. He held it out to me, the same hand he’d used a moment earlier. Instead, I braced myself against the counter and got up without it.
Beatrice stepped back to make room. Her shoe crunched a piece of the jar.
“Watch the mat,” I said.
She lifted her foot and stared at the white dust on her sole.
Thomas carried Nell to the office. I followed, keeping one hand against the counter until I reached the door. Beatrice came behind me, her heels clicking on the clean tiles beyond the spill.
The office was barely wide enough for the desk and two chairs. A stack of invoices leaned against the safe. Thomas put Nell in the padded chair and pulled it close to his leg, then woke the monitor with the mouse.
Four squares appeared. One showed the empty front counter. Another showed the bakery’s back door. In the third, I could see the flour-dusted counters, the bread racks, and the mat.
Beatrice leaned into the doorway.
“That camera has no sound, does it?” she asked.
Thomas glanced at her. “Why?”
“I’m asking because she’s making claims about what I said.”
“It records sound,” I told him.
Beatrice smoothed the front of her grey suit. “Well. Then you’ll hear the whole thing.”
Thomas moved the cursor along the recording. The screen jumped back to Nell sitting on the mat, patting a wooden spoon against her leg. Beatrice stood near the counter with the ceramic jar in her hands.
“Stop there,” Beatrice said. “Before that. You need to see what led up to it.”
Thomas dragged the cursor farther back. The three of us watched Nell on the mat while Beatrice stood by the counter, tapping at her phone. Thomas had brought Nell into the bakery when he came by to discuss an order with our boss. Then his phone had rung, and he’d stepped outside to take the call.
On the recording, Nell dropped the spoon. It clattered against the tile, and she began to cry.
Beatrice looked toward the door Thomas had used. She bent to retrieve the spoon, but Nell knocked it away when she offered it back. Beatrice straightened and set the spoon on the counter. Beside it sat the heavy ceramic jar, filled with wooden stirrers.
“I was trying to distract her,” Beatrice said behind me.
On the monitor, she pulled the stirrers out and dropped them onto the counter. Then she lifted the jar.
Nell’s crying rose through the monitor’s small speaker. The sound mixed with her quieter hiccups beside us.
“Shut up!” Beatrice shouted on the recording.
She held the jar high above Nell.
I appeared at the edge of the picture, my hairnet and white uniform flashing past the bread rack.
“Put her down!”
Onscreen, I lunged with both arms out. The jar slipped from Beatrice’s hands, glanced off my fingertips, and shattered beside Nell. I dropped between the baby and the scattered pieces.
Thomas paused the video.
Nobody spoke. The monitor showed me on my knees, one arm stretched across the mat. Beatrice stood over me with her hands empty.
Thomas clicked play again. He watched himself arrive in the shop door. He watched Beatrice point down at me.
“She did it!”
He reached for the mouse, but I said, “Let it run.”
His hand stopped.
On the screen, he pulled me up and slapped me. My head turned sharply, and I fell out of the camera’s view. A second later, my arm rose into the picture, pointing upward.
“Check the camera,” my recorded voice said.
Thomas shut his eyes. Nell made a small sound, and he opened them again.
Beatrice drew herself up. “The jar slipped. You can see that. I would never have dropped it on purpose.”
“You held it over her,” Thomas said.
“She was screaming. I wasn’t thinking.”
“You told me Mina did it.”
Beatrice looked at me. “I thought she had knocked it from my hands.”
The recording was still playing. Onscreen, Beatrice was asking whether there was a camera. Thomas clicked the mouse and silenced it.
“I didn’t touch it until it fell,” I said.
Beatrice opened her mouth, then closed it. She turned to Thomas. “You know me. I’ve ordered from this bakery for years. There is no need to involve anyone else.”
Nell stretched both arms toward him. He picked her up, holding the back of her head.
“I’m calling the police,” he said.
Beatrice’s hand flew to her scarf. “Thomas, please. Your daughter isn’t hurt.”
He looked at me, then back at her. “Mina is.”
I pressed my tongue against the cut inside my lip. The taste of blood had faded, but my jaw still hurt when I swallowed.
Beatrice took her phone from her purse. “I need to call my husband.”
“You can do that outside,” Thomas said.
She stayed in the doorway. “And what exactly are you going to tell them?”
“The truth.”
Her eyes moved to the monitor. “That can be copied, can’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
She looked at me as though she’d forgotten I was standing there.
Thomas called the police while I found a clean cloth and held it against my mouth. He gave the bakery’s address, told them Nell was safe, and said there had been an assault. His voice caught on the last word. He repeated it clearly when the person on the phone asked.
Then he told them about the jar and the camera.
Beatrice went out to the front of the shop. Through the office doorway, I could see her by the pastry case, speaking into her phone with one hand cupped over her mouth.
Thomas ended his call. He didn’t put his phone away.
“I came back because your boss texted me,” he said. “She needed to leave for a delivery, and she asked me to pick up Nell.”
I nodded. I’d seen the boss pull away in the delivery van just before I went to the storage room for flour. Thomas had been outside on his call, and Beatrice had been near the mat.
“I should have asked you what happened,” he said.
I kept the cloth against my lip.
He pulled out the other office chair but didn’t sit. “I saw Nell on the floor and the jar in pieces. Beatrice pointed at you, and I—” He stopped. “There’s no excuse. I hit you.”
Nell’s fingers had found the collar of his polo. She tugged it until he loosened her grip gently.
“I’ll tell the police that too,” he said.
I lowered the cloth. A pink mark had spread across it. “I want a copy of the video before anyone touches the system.”
“Of course.”
He found a spare drive in the desk drawer, but his hand shook when he tried to plug it in. He set it down beside the keyboard.
I copied the recording myself, starting several minutes before Beatrice picked up the jar and ending after Thomas struck me. A progress bar crept across the screen. Neither of us spoke until it reached the end.
I checked that the file played, then put the drive in my apron pocket.
From the front of the shop came the scrape of the door. Thomas stepped out of the office, still carrying Nell.
“Beatrice,” he called, “the police are on their way.”
She had her purse over her shoulder and one hand on the door. She let it swing closed again.
“I was only going to my car,” she said.
Thomas stood between her and the office. “You can wait here.”
When the officers arrived, one stayed with Beatrice near the front counter. The other came into the back room. I showed him the broken jar beside the mat before anyone swept it up. He crouched to look at the pieces, then asked me to walk him through what had happened.
My voice wavered once, when I described reaching for the jar. I stopped, took a breath, and began that part again. The officer waited with his pen poised over his notebook.
Thomas gave his account next. He told the officer he hadn’t seen Beatrice holding the jar. He said he’d believed her when she pointed at me. Then he described pulling me up and slapping me.
The officer asked if I wanted medical attention. I touched my lip and said yes.
While we waited for the ambulance, Thomas took Nell to the far end of the room, away from the ceramic. She had gone quiet against his shoulder. He bent his head and kissed her curls.
Beatrice was still speaking with the other officer when they brought her through the back. Her scarf had slipped loose. She caught sight of the camera and looked away.
The officer asked for the recording. I took the drive from my pocket, then paused.
“I made this copy,” I said. “The original is still on the system. I’d like to keep a copy too.”
“We can arrange that,” he said.
I handed him the drive and went back to the office with him. He watched while I made a second copy. When it finished, I slipped that one into my apron pocket.
Outside, an ambulance pulled up by the shop door. Thomas started toward me, but I stepped past him.
At the threshold, I took off my flour-covered apron and folded it around the drive. Then I carried it with me to the waiting ambulance.
