Chapter 3 - THE COLD NURSERY
Claire had blamed herself.
That was the part she could not stop thinking about.
Three nights after Emma came home, Claire woke at 2:00 a.m. and found the nursery colder than expected.
Margaret said:
“You must have lowered it accidentally.”
Claire believed her.
Two nights later, it happened again.
Then again.
Ethan joked gently:
“Sleep deprivation is brutal.”
Claire cried in the shower afterward.
She had never forgotten a thermostat setting in her life.
But postpartum exhaustion made anything seem possible.
Now the smart-home history showed six temperature changes.
All from Margaret’s profile.
Most between 1:00 and 3:00 a.m.
Ethan stared at the records.
Margaret said:
“The nursery was too warm.”
“Then why did you tell Claire she changed it?” Ethan asked.
“I didn’t remember.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“That’s convenient.”
Margaret turned on her.
“You haven’t been yourself since the birth.”
Claire stood.
“You don’t get to diagnose me because you got caught.”
A hospital social worker asked them to lower their voices.
Claire sat again.
Emma slept.
Margaret folded her arms.
Then Ethan asked:
“Why sixty-one?”
Margaret said:
“I didn’t set sixty-one.”
The app log did.
Ethan refreshed it.
The history expanded.
One change showed:
61°F — 1:14 a.m.
Then:
70°F — 5:48 a.m.
Both from Margaret’s profile.
Claire remembered that morning.
Margaret had carried Emma into the kitchen and said:
“She’s freezing again. Claire, sweetheart, you have to pay attention.”
Ethan had looked at Claire with concern.
Not accusation.
Not yet.
But concern was enough.
Claire had apologized.
Now she stared at him.
“You watched me apologize for something she did.”
Ethan whispered:
“I didn’t know.”
“No.”
Claire’s eyes filled.
“You believed her before you checked.”
The social worker returned with another item recovered from the house.
A handwritten notebook.
Margaret’s.
On one page:
TEMP LOW AGAIN — C. DID NOT NOTICE UNTIL 6:05.
May you like
Claire looked at the date.
The note had been written before 5:30 that morning.
