Chapter 1 - The unlocked door
My name is Claire Bennett.
I was thirty years old, twenty-nine weeks pregnant, and weak enough that standing made black spots swim across my vision when my husband forgot to lock the attic door.
The room was technically not an attic.
That was what Michael always said.
“It’s a finished third floor.”
A finished third floor had drywall.
A narrow window.
A portable heater.
A half bathroom added by the previous owners.
A mattress.
A lamp.
A sloped ceiling.
The realtor had called it a bonus room.
Michael called it:
“Somewhere quiet where you can recover.”
By the ninth day, I called it the attic because that was what it had become.
A room above the house where I could not leave unless Michael or Patricia opened the door from outside.
I wore the same faded lavender T-shirt I had slept in the night before.
Dark maternity pants.
No shoes.
My brown hair had not been properly washed in almost a week.
A thin feeding tube ran through my nose and down into my digestive tract.
It had been placed at the hospital because pregnancy had turned food into an enemy.
Hyperemesis gravidarum.
The words sounded almost elegant compared with what they meant.
Vomiting.
Weight loss.
Dehydration.
Hospital admissions.
IV fluids.
Electrolytes.
Then tube feeding when I could no longer keep enough nutrition down for myself or the baby.
The tube was supposed to help me.
Patricia had turned every feeding into a demonstration of obedience.
She knelt beside me holding the large syringe connected to the tubing.
Michael stood several feet behind her.
Dark T-shirt.
Jeans.
Phone held horizontally.
The red recording indicator reflected against his cheek.
Patricia looked down at the plastic container beside her.
“Use the same mixture as yesterday.”
Michael did not look at me.
“Just keep her face in frame.”
I slid my left hand beneath the hem of my shirt.
The second phone was pressed flat against my side beneath a folded piece of cloth.
Old.
Small.
Cracked screen.
No SIM card.
Almost no battery.
It belonged to me before Michael convinced me to upgrade two years earlier.
He thought I had recycled it.
I had found it in a box three weeks before being moved upstairs.
In the attic, it had almost no cellular reception beneath the metal roof.
The house Wi-Fi did not reach reliably because Michael had unplugged the old upstairs extender after saying electronics kept me awake.
The phone was useless for ordinary communication most of the time.
But it could record.
I pressed the side button.
Then tapped the screen through my shirt.
I felt the vibration.
Recording.
Patricia attached the syringe.
I closed my eyes.
The mixture entered slowly.
I will not describe what it tasted like because the tube bypassed most of that problem.
What I felt was pressure.
Then nausea.
A cold, heavy sensation in my stomach.
The formula the hospital had prescribed was not supposed to do that every time.
Patricia said my reaction proved I was:
“Fighting the nutrition.”
Michael said the camera needed to show people what caregiving really looked like.
I had stopped asking who these people were.
I knew enough.
His channel.
His followers.
His private subscriber group.
My illness had become content.
I kept my eyes down.
Breathed through my nose.
Pretended I was more sedated than I actually felt.
Michael moved.
“You’re blocking her.”
Patricia glanced back.
“I’m feeding her.”
“You’re covering half her face.”
“Then move.”
“I can’t use that angle.”
Patricia slammed the syringe onto the tray.
“You care more about that channel than controlling her!”
The words hung in the room.
Michael’s face changed.
“You think this is easy?”
“I think you are useless unless somebody is watching.”
“Shut up.”
“Don’t speak to me like that.”
Michael grabbed his phone.
“Finish it yourself.”
He turned.
Walked toward the attic stairs.
Patricia stood.
“Michael!”
He ignored her.
She followed.
“You started this. You don’t get to leave me with—”
The attic door slammed.
Their voices continued through the hallway below.
Michael shouting.
Patricia following.
Then silence at the door.
I waited.
Every muscle locked.
There was always another sound.
Metal against metal.
A slide latch Michael had installed on the hallway side.
Click.
Nine nights.
Click.
Morning.
Click.
Afternoon.
Click.
Every time they left me alone.
I waited.
Nothing.
Their argument moved downstairs.
I could hear fragments.
Patricia:
“…your stupid videos…”
Michael:
“…you’re the one who—”
Then lower.
Farther away.
I pulled the small phone from beneath my shirt.
My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped it.
The recording timer was still moving.
I stopped it.
Played back three seconds through the tiny speaker.
Patricia’s voice:
“Use the same mixture as yesterday.”
Michael:
“Just keep her face in frame.”
Later:
“You care more about that channel than controlling her!”
My knees nearly gave out.
Not because the recording proved everything.
It didn’t.
But it was real.
I had not imagined the sentence.
Had not dreamed it through medication.
Had not confused days.
I pushed myself upright using the mattress.
The baby moved low inside me.
A hard roll.
I pressed one hand against my stomach.
“Okay.”
My voice barely worked.
“Okay, sweetheart.”
The door was ten feet away.
It might as well have been across a football field.
I stood.
Waited for the room to settle.
One step.
Then another.
My bare feet moved over the old wood floor.
I reached the door.
Pressed my ear against it.
Nothing directly outside.
I put one trembling hand against the wood.
For nine days, it had never moved when I pushed.
This time it opened half an inch.
Cold hallway air touched my face.
I stared through the gap.
Dark hall.
Empty stairs.
My heart hammered.
May you like
I whispered:
“This is my chance.”
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