The Tape Across the Cameras

Paul’s hand fell away from Dylan’s arm, his fingers opening one at a time. For an instant, a pale mark circled Dylan’s forearm; then it faded as color returned to his skin.

Neither of them spoke or moved. Silence settled over the house, thick and airless, while the refrigerator’s steady murmur drifted from the kitchen.

Dylan didn’t touch the place where Paul had held him. He let his arm hang. The roll of black tape dropped from his hand, struck the floor, and spun toward the white trim before coming to rest.

“Don’t,” Paul warned, his voice roughened to a whisper. “Don’t give me that look. I’m not the villain here.”

“I never called you one,” Dylan answered, barely above a breath.

Then he turned away. He walked down the hall, entered his room, and shut the door behind him. A moment later, the deadbolt scraped into place, its metallic sound carrying through the house.

We’d fitted the bedroom doors with commercial-grade locks three years earlier, after a fan tracked down our address and appeared on the porch with a bunch of balloons. We’d told Dylan they were there to keep strangers outside. Now he was using one to shut out his parents.

Paul kept staring at the door. He dragged a hand through his hair and exhaled as if something inside him had sprung a leak. When he looked at me, there was a plea in his expression: agree with me.

“He’s twelve, Priya. It’s puberty. He’ll get past this.”

My gaze went to the small black dome fixed high in the corner. A red pinprick blinked behind its dark surface. I’d cleaned around that device for years, without once considering what it meant that it was there.

“Is it recording?” I asked.

Paul’s eyebrows lifted. “What?”

“The camera. Is it recording now?”

He paused. It lasted less than a beat, almost invisible, but fourteen years as his wife had taught me to notice the moments before he chose his answer.

“It’s on standby,” he said. He took out his phone and swiped through its screen. “I shut it down. I was just keeping the buffer.”

“You filmed that?” My coffee had turned cold, but I lifted the mug and drank to buy myself a second. It tasted bitter and burnt. “You recorded him trying to cover the cameras?”

“That wasn’t why I started it,” Paul said, moving nearer. His voice lowered, mindful of the closed door at the end of the hall. “I hit capture back in the kitchen. Dylan was putting the groceries away, arranging the boxes by color like he does. I figured it could work as B-roll. Then he picked up the tape and took off. I forgot the recording was still running. No big deal. I’ll cut the last part.”

His explanation came smoothly, as though it made perfect sense. Paul knew how to make an intrusion sound ordinary. A bit of B-roll. Something for the channel. Our everyday life, repackaged.

I could still see Dylan’s expression.

I placed my mug on the island. “We need to remove the cameras.”

Paul frowned. “Remove what?”

“Every camera in this house.”

A humorless laugh escaped him. He went into the kitchen and rested against the counter, arms folded. “You can’t be serious. You want ten thousand dollars of equipment ripped out because a middle-schooler is having a fit?”

“He isn’t having a fit. You made him feel exposed.”

“I let people see that he’s a real person,” Paul insisted, keeping his tone measured. “The comments on the math video were great. People said they were glad a family channel showed the difficult parts. That makes viewers trust us. It makes money, too. The ad revenue from that one video is going toward the new roof, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“The roof isn’t what matters to me.”

“You notice when it rains in the living room,” he snapped back.

He pressed his fingertips to his temples and sighed. “I understand that he’s angry. I’ll talk to him soon. I’ll say I should’ve warned him about posting it. But this channel is how we support ourselves. The fixed cameras are why engagement has climbed thirty percent this quarter. Sponsors like the passive footage. It looks genuine.”

Genuine. The word turned my stomach.

“I’m going to see how he is,” I said.

I headed along the hall, then bent to collect the discarded tape. It sat heavily in my palm, a small, sticky thing that seemed to stand for more than it should. I tapped on Dylan’s door.

“Dylan? It’s Mom.”

No answer came.

“Honey, can you open up? Your dad’s in the kitchen.”

I heard the bed shift, then the quiet shuffle of socks against the floor. The bolt slid back with a solid clunk. The door opened only a few inches. Beyond it, the room was dim; Dylan had drawn the blackout curtains, leaving a narrow gray seam of daylight around the window.

I didn’t push. I held the tape at my side and asked if he would let me come in so we could talk.

After another pause, Dylan turned the deadbolt fully open and eased the door wider. He let me into the darkened room.