“They don’t watch it? Why do they bother, then?”

“There are twelve beds here, all full. That’s twelve days’ worth of footage, every day. Plus, the hallways, the entry doors, the grounds. You couldn’t watch it all if you tried.”

“Aha,” said Lauren. “So you might get away with it then? Leaving a patient alone with babies, when you’ve been told not to.”

“I might, yes,” said Pauline, swallowing nervously.

“If I keep my mouth shut.”

Pauline just looked at her.

“So, barring the unlikely possibility someone was watching the screen at that exact moment, no one will ever know. Unless I tell them, within the next week, before they scrub the footage.”

Pauline’s face screwed up in anger, then went slack in defeat. She shrugged and went about the business of scooping powdered formula into the bottles of hot water. The twins started making soft mewling noises and flapped their hands by their sides. The one in green chewed his right hand, while the one in yellow chewed his left.

“Which one do you want?” asked Pauline, swirling the milk in the bottles to mix it up and cool it down.

“You choose,” said Lauren.

They sat in the chairs to feed the babies, who both kept a fixed gaze on Lauren. The one dressed as Riley showed no interest in Pauline, turning his head determinedly in the arms of the nurse so that she had to shift her position to get the bottle in. Lauren smiled down at the one she held, feeling cold. The small body was holding itself in a strange way. Morgan would have curled into her arm. This baby didn’t know how to do that. In a way, she almost felt sorry for it. But her revulsion for the things, and her longing for her boys were hard to keep in check with pity alone.

Without moving her lips very much, she nodded towards the camera and whispered, “Does it have sound?”

Pretending not to respond, Pauline breathed out, “Yes, but it’s not very good quality.”

Lauren saw her opportunity and grabbed it. She could make things right, before the doctor saw the things Pauline was writing about her.

“I need your notes from earlier,” whispered Lauren.

“What?” said Pauline, much too loudly.

Lauren stood up with her back to the camera, still feeding the baby. “Give me the notes,” she said, “or I’ll tell the doctor to check the footage.”

Pauline’s expression was sour. But she knew she had no choice if she wanted to keep her job. Within twenty minutes, Lauren was in the bathroom, waiting for the shredded pages from the notebook to soften enough that she could flush them and they wouldn’t come back up.

Chapter 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

AUGUST 15TH
11 A.M.