Fool Me Once

She tried to feel a presence. She had tried this before, in countless mourning situations, seeing if she could sense any sort of life force after death, but there was always nothing. Some believed that there had to be at least a small life force-that energy and motion never die completely, that the soul is eternal, that you can’t destroy matter permanently, all that. Perhaps that was true, but the more of the dead Maya hung around, the more it felt as though nothing, absolutely nothing, was left behind.

She stayed by the gravesite until Eileen came back from the playground with Lily.

“Ready?” Eileen asked.

Maya took another look at the hole in the ground. She wanted to say something profound to Joe, something that might give them both-ugh-closure, but no words came to her.

Eileen drove them home. Lily fell asleep in a car seat that looked like something designed by NASA. Maya sat in the front passenger seat and stared out the window. When they got to the house-Joe had actually wanted to name it too, but Maya had put her foot down-Maya somehow managed to release the complicated strapping mechanism and eased Lily out of the backseat. She cradled Lily’s head so as not to wake her.

“Thanks for the ride,” Maya whispered.

Eileen turned off the car. “Do you mind if I come in for a second?”

“We’ll be fine.”

“No doubt.” Eileen unbuckled her seat belt. “But I’ve been meaning to give you something. It’ll just take two minutes.”

* * *

Maya held it in her hand. “A digital picture frame?”

Eileen was a strawberry blonde with freckles and a wide smile. She had the kind of face that lit up a room when she entered, which made it a great mask for the torment beneath.

“No, it’s a nanny cam disguised as a digital picture frame.”

“Say again?”

“Now that you’re working full-time, you’ve got to keep a better eye on things, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Where does Isabella play with Lily most of the time?”

Maya gestured to her right. “In the den.”

“Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Eileen…”

She took the frame from Maya’s hand. “Just follow me.”

The den was right off the kitchen. It had a cathedral ceiling and plenty of blond wood. A big-screen television hung on the wall. There were two baskets filled to the brim with educational toys for Lily. A Pack ’n Play stood in front of the couch where there used to be a beautiful mahogany coffee table. The coffee table, alas, hadn’t been child friendly, so it had to go.

Eileen moved toward the bookshelf. She found a spot for the frame and plugged the cord into a nearby outlet. “I already preloaded some pictures of your family. The digital frame will just shuffle through and display them. Do Isabella and Lily normally play by that couch?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Eileen shifted the frame in that direction. “The camera built inside this thing is wide-angle, so you can see the whole room.”

“Eileen-”

“I saw her at the funeral.”

“Who?”

“Your nanny.”

“Isabella’s family goes way back with Joe’s. Her mother was Joe’s nanny. Her brother is the family gardener.”

“For real?”

Maya shrugged. “The rich.”

“They’re different.”

“They are.”

“So do you trust her?”

“Who, Isabella?”

“Yes.”

Maya shrugged. “You know me.”

“I do.” Eileen had originally been Claire’s friend-the two had been assigned as freshman roommates at Vassar-but all three women quickly grew close. “You trust no one, Maya.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“Fine. When it comes to your child?”

“When it comes to my child,” Maya said, “yeah, okay, no one.”

Eileen smiled. “That’s why I’m giving you this. Look, I don’t think you’ll find anything. Isabella seems great.”

“But better safe than sorry?”

“Exactly. I can’t tell you how much comfort it gave me when I left Kyle and Missy with the nanny.”

Maya wondered about that-whether Eileen had just used it with the nanny or whether she had built a case against someone else-but she kept the thought to herself for now.

“Do you have an SD card port on your computer?” Eileen asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Doesn’t matter. I got you an SD reader that connects into any USB port. Just plug it into your laptop or computer. Really, it doesn’t get easier than this. You take the SD card out of the frame at the end of the day-it’s back here, see?”

Maya nodded.

“Then you stick the card into the reader. The video pops up on your screen. The SD is thirty-two gigs, so it should last days easily. There’s also a motion detector, so it’s not recording when the room is empty or anything like that.”

Maya couldn’t help but smile. “Look at you.”

“What? The role reversal bothering you?”

“A little. I should have thought of doing this myself.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t.”

Maya looked down and met her friend’s eye. Eileen was maybe five two, Maya nearly six feet tall, but with the ramrod posture, she looked even taller. “Did you ever see anything on your nanny cam?”

“You mean, something I shouldn’t have?”

“Yeah.”

“No,” Eileen said. “And I know what you’re thinking. He hasn’t been back. And I haven’t seen him.”

“I’m not judging.”

“Not even a little?”

“What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t judge a little?”