Chapter 7 - The Thermometer Had Nothing to Do With Lila
Camille finally said:
“I thought it was wrong.”
Mateo frowned.
“The thermometer?”
“Yes.”
Two nights earlier Noah’s nursery felt unusually warm.
The wall thermostat displayed seventy-two degrees.
The portable thermometer showed seventy-eight.
Camille became frightened.
She checked again.
Different reading.
She moved it across the room.
Still high.
She removed it because she wanted to compare it later.
Mateo stared.
“Why hide it?”
“I didn’t hide it because of Lila.”
“Then why put it in the same bag?”
“Because I didn’t want another argument.”
“What argument?”
Camille looked toward the nursery.
“You said I was checking everything too much.”
Mateo remembered.
Since bringing Noah home, Camille repeatedly checked the room temperature.
The blanket.
His breathing.
The monitor.
The window latch.
The humidifier.
Mateo sometimes teased her.
Then became frustrated.
“Camille, he’s fine.”
“Camille, you need to sleep.”
“Camille, stop checking every five minutes.”
She had interpreted those comments as dismissal.
So when the thermometer readings seemed inconsistent, she removed it instead of raising another concern.
Mateo’s anger cooled enough for worry to enter.
“Was the room actually too warm?”
Vincent checked.
No.
The portable thermometer itself was malfunctioning.
That should have ended the issue.
Instead it revealed something else.
Not every hidden item was part of Camille’s manipulation.
That mattered.
The tote had become a messy container for secrets of different kinds.
Planted items.
A faulty thermometer.
A pacifier Camille stopped using after noticing a crack.
Two bottle caps she meant to compare.
Camille had been hiding problems rather than discussing them.
Not all malicious.
But all private.
Mateo suddenly understood the broader pattern.
Their house had become full of individual people managing fear alone.
Lila drew instead of speaking.
Camille hid objects.
Mateo reassured instead of listening.
Everyone thought they were reducing anxiety.
They were actually preventing truth from moving between them.
Still, the deliberate framing remained real.
Mateo would not let complexity erase responsibility.
“You planted the rattle?”
“Yes.”
“The pacifier clip?”
“Yes.”
“The sock?”
“No. That one started everything.”
“The ribbon?”
“Yes.”
“And you placed things in Lila’s room?”
Camille’s eyes lowered.
“Yes.”
Mateo looked away.
Five incidents.
Three deliberate.
One accidental.
One unrelated.
Reality was messier than the story either of them wanted.
Then Lila called from the doorway.
“Daddy?”
Mateo turned.
She held another notebook page.
This drawing showed Camille crying alone beside Noah’s crib.
No planted objects.
No threat.
Just tears.
Underneath Lila had written:
SHE CRIES WHEN BABY SLEEPS.
May you like
Mateo looked at Camille.
The story shifted again.
