Chapter 2 - STOP WATCHING ME
Matteo’s lips moved.
I leaned so close to monitor four that my knuckles touched the glass.
For fourteen months, I had memorized every sound my son made.
The small grunt when a transfer hurt.
The breath he released when he was angry but refused to cry.
The wordless noises he made in sleep.
This was different.
A voice.
Thin.
Rusty.
Still his.
Clara froze beside the bed.
“What did you say?”
Matteo swallowed.
His fingers were wrapped around the sheet.
Then he looked toward the upper corner of the room.
Toward the camera.
My stomach dropped.
“Stop…”
Clara waited.
He tried again.
“Watching.”
The room inside my chest went silent.
Clara followed his gaze.
At first, I thought she had missed it.
The camera was built into the smoke-detector housing.
Custom.
Small.
Expensive.
Invisible to anyone who did not know exactly what to look for.
Then Clara stood.
She walked beneath it.
Looked up.
Her face changed.
Not fear.
Anger.
“Matteo.”
He watched her.
“Is there a camera in here?”
A pause.
Then he nodded.
My hand reached for the intercom.
Stopped.
Clara looked at the bedroom door.
Then back at him.
“Do you know when it’s on?”
Matteo nodded again.
“All the time?”
Another nod.
I had told myself he did not know.
That was the first lie.
Not to him.
To myself.
Clara looked directly into the lens.
At me.
Even though she could not see the control room.
“Mr. Rossi,” she said.
My jaw tightened.
She knew.
“Come upstairs.”
Not:
Please.
Not:
If you’re watching.
She knew.
Dominic stood behind me in the control room.
“Boss?”
I rose.
No answer.
The elevator felt slow.
Everything felt slow.
When I reached Matteo’s room, Clara was standing beside his wheelchair.
The therapy session was over.
Matteo sat upright against his pillows.
His face looked exhausted.
Alive.
That frightened me more.
Because grief had made stillness feel safer.
Clara pointed toward the camera.
“How many?”
I looked at Matteo.
He looked away.
“Clara.”
“How many cameras are in his room?”
“One.”
She stared.
“Bathroom?”
I said nothing.
Her face went cold.
“Bathroom?”
“Not pointed at the toilet or shower.”
The second lie I had used.
As if angle solved the problem.
“It covers the door and sink.”
Clara looked at Matteo.
He had gone completely quiet again.
Not the dead quiet of the last year.
A defensive quiet.
Different.
Worse.
She asked:
“Does he know?”
I answered for him.
“Yes.”
She turned on me.
“I asked Matteo.”
No one spoke to me like that.
Not in my house.
Not twice.
Matteo’s eyes moved between us.
Clara lowered herself until she was closer to his height.
“Do you know there are cameras in your bathroom?”
He nodded.
“Do you want them there?”
Matteo’s mouth moved.
No sound.
Then he shook his head.
My son’s answer.
No.
Simple.
I had spent fourteen months pretending his silence gave me permission.
It had not.
Clara stood.
“Turn them off.”
My anger rose automatically.
Not because she was wrong.
Because she gave me an order.
“Security is not your job.”
“No.”
“His care is.”
“He was almost killed.”
“So were you.”
“Yes.”
“And does Dominic watch you shower?”
Dominic, standing in the doorway, suddenly became fascinated by the carpet.
I looked at Clara.
“Careful.”
She did not flinch.
“That is exactly the problem.”
My hands tightened.
“Explain.”
“You think the worst thing that can happen to Matteo is someone getting through your gates.”
She looked at him.
“It isn’t.”
My voice dropped.
“What is?”
“Learning that surviving means he never gets privacy again.”
I stopped breathing.
Clara continued.
“He lost movement below T8.”
“He did not lose personhood.”
“He needs help with transfers, bowel and bladder care, skin checks, stretching, medication, positioning, and whatever his rehab team prescribes.”
She pointed at the camera.
“He does not need an audience for every minute of it.”
My chest hurt.
Not because she was cruel.
Because Elena had once said something similar.
Two weeks before the explosion.
You turn every fear into a perimeter, Vincent.
I had accused her of not understanding risk.
Then she died.
And I built more perimeter.
I looked at Matteo.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
His face changed.
Wrong question.
I knew it before Clara spoke.
“Because he stopped talking.”
I closed my eyes.
Yes.
He could not tell me.
And I had used that silence as evidence that the system worked.
I walked toward the camera.
Reached for the wall panel.
The feed could be disabled there, but only if the control room unlocked the circuit.
I called Dominic.
“Kill bedroom four interior feed.”
Dominic looked at me.
“All?”
“All.”
“Bathroom too?”
“Yes.”
My heart raced as if I had just ordered the gates opened.
The tiny status light on the camera went dark.
Matteo stared.
No smile.
Not yet.
I looked at Clara.
“Hallway stays.”
“Yes.”
She answered too quickly.
I frowned.
She shrugged.
“Outside the room is different.”
“Door alarm?”
“Fine if he knows what it does.”
“Window sensor?”
“Fine.”
“Exterior?”
“Obviously.”
She was not arguing against security.
She was drawing a line between protection and surveillance.
I understood the distinction intellectually.
My body hated it.
Then Clara did something I did not expect.
She went to the desk.
Found a yellow sticky note.
Wrote on it.
Handed it to Matteo.
The note said:
YOUR ROOM. YOUR RULES TOO.
He read it.
His mouth trembled.
Then he pointed toward the dead camera.
Clara looked at me.
“Can he cover it?”
I almost said no.
Why?
Because equipment.
Because access.
Because I was still clinging.
Then I nodded.
Clara wheeled Matteo beneath the camera.
He could not reach.
She asked:
“Want help?”
He nodded.
Consent.
She lifted him slightly at the trunk with one arm supporting him? Wait. Unsafe. No.
She did not lift him.
She held the sticky note where he pointed.
“Here?”
He shook head.
“Higher?”
Nod.
She placed it over the lens.
Yellow square.
Crooked.
The camera was already off.
Still.
The note mattered.
Matteo looked at it.
Then at me.
His lips moved again.
“Mine.”
One word.
I had heard my son speak twice in one day.
Both times he was telling me to stop taking something.
That hurt more than betrayal ever had.
I sat in the chair near his bed.
Not beside him.
Not touching.
“Okay.”
Matteo watched me.
I looked around his room.
The custom bed.
Therapy equipment.
Medication cabinet.
Window overlooking the sea.
Everything selected by me.
Everything expensive.
Everything safe.
Nothing chosen by him.
I asked:
“Do you want the bed by the window?”
He frowned.
Maybe too much.
Clara said nothing.
I waited.
Matteo looked at window.
Then door.
He pointed toward the opposite wall.
He wanted the bed moved.
Why?
Maybe glare.
Maybe view.
Maybe because he could.
It did not matter.
“Okay.”
I called facilities.
Then stopped.
No.
I looked at Matteo.
“Tomorrow?”
He nodded.
Then Clara said:
“Ask him about the camera in the therapy room.”
I stared.
She stared back.
There were cameras almost everywhere.
Gym.
Schoolroom.
Dining room.
Hallways.
Family room.
Kitchen.
Every common space.
My office.
Even library.
No bathrooms except the discreet entry-angle security units.
No guest bedrooms? Yes.
All.
I had installed them after Elena died.
I called it protection.
Clara called it something else without saying the word.
Surveillance.
I looked at Matteo.
“Therapy room?”
He thought.
Then shrugged.
Not enough.
Clara said:
“Maybe he wants it there for safety.”
Not assume.
I asked:
“Do you want me to watch therapy?”
Matteo looked at me.
Long.
Then shook his head.
No.
Again.
I swallowed.
“Do you want recordings kept in case something happens?”
He looked confused.
Fair.
Eight.
Too complex.
Clara simplified.
“Camera on for safety, but Dad doesn’t sit and watch?”
Matteo considered.
Then nodded.
Different.
I could work with different.
We changed it.
Live alert to security only for falls or panic button.
No routine viewing by me.
Recordings retained short term under a documented policy.
Who was I?
A man making a policy in his son’s bedroom because a caretaker had forced me to notice privacy.
Then Matteo’s hand moved toward mine.
I froze.
He had not reached for me voluntarily in months.
His fingers touched two of mine.
Weak grip.
Enough.
I did not close my hand around his.
I let him control contact.
He whispered:
“Dad.”
My throat closed.
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
Then toward Clara.
Then back.
“Stop… funeral.”
The sentence was broken.
The meaning was not.
You look at me like you’re at a funeral.
Clara’s words.
His agreement.
I lowered my head.
Not because I wanted him to comfort me.
Because I needed a second.
“Elena died,” I said.
My wife.
His mother.
“You didn’t.”
My voice broke.
“I know that.”
Did I?
No.
Not really.
I had treated Matteo’s childhood as if it had died with her.
No school friends.
No outings except medical.
No adaptive sports because security risk.
No sleepovers obviously.
No normal mess.
Nothing spontaneous.
Protection had become burial.
I looked at him.
“I’m sorry.”
He did not forgive me dramatically.
He just held my fingers a little tighter.
Then let go.
Choice.
Clara turned toward door.
“I’m going to get his evening meds.”
I looked at her.
“Stay.”
She stopped.
Not command?
It sounded like one.
I corrected.
“Please.”
She looked at Matteo.
He nodded.
She stayed.
I asked her:
“How did you know?”
“About the cameras?”
“Yes.”
She pointed at smoke detector.
“The lens caught lightning.”
It had not taken any special expertise.
The storm had flashed across the tiny lens at the right angle.
“And you knew he knew.”
“I asked.”
Then I remembered her résumé.
Two-year employment gap.
Assisted living.
Caretaking skills far beyond what her titles suggested.
“You’ve done this before.”
Clara’s expression changed.
“Done what?”
“Spinal cord care.”
Silence.
She looked at Matteo.
Then me.
“My sister.”
The room shifted.
“Accident?”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“When?”
Clara’s eyes hardened.
One question too many.
I stopped.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
Her face softened slightly.
“Twenty-one.”
Then:
“T10 injury.”
“She lives independently now.”
Eva was alive, independent, and living a full adult life.
“She taught me more than the facilities did.”
“Why is there a two-year gap?”
Clara looked at Matteo.
“That story belongs somewhere else.”
Boundary.
I nodded.
Then she left for meds.
I stayed with my son.
No monitor.
No camera.
Just the room.
For the first time since the bombing, I had no idea what Matteo was doing unless I was physically there.
The uncertainty felt like panic.
Then like grief.
Then, very slowly, like trust.
Not in Clara.
Not yet.
In my son.
That was worse.
May you like
Because if I trusted him to have privacy, I had to accept that I could not prevent every bad thing.
And I had built my entire life around pretending I could.
