Part 3 — What Nora Filmed
Nora held the tablet in both hands, the way she always does, like a sandwich.
“Grandpa, I filmed it from the back seat. I did not know it was a secret.”
Brent started to stand, and his wifes aunt Carolyn put a firm hand on his arm. “Let the child show us,” she said.
I tapped the screen and the video began. The sun was low over my driveway. A man in a gray jacket leaned into the truck window on the passenger side. It was Brent.
He pressed a small brown bottle into Tammys purse and zipped it closed. Then he said something quiet, and she nodded, and he patted the roof of the truck twice and walked away.
The little voice from the back seat said, “Daddy, what is that?” And Brent answered, clear as a bell, “Just Mommys medicine, Nora. Do not tell Grandpa.”
Nobody at that table moved.
Brent had not been afraid for his wife; he had been loading the scene, and a seven-year-old had quietly filmed him doing it.
Tammy finally lifted her head. She said it was true, that she had been drinking again since July, and that she had been so ashamed she let Brent supply what she asked for because it was easier than telling her father.
She said she had known he was angry at me for months. She said she suspected he wanted the house.
I had not known about that. The retainer receipt in his jacket was for a custody lawyer, and the lawyer had asked for a quick petition. Brent had planned to say that Ray was an unfit grandfather, and the video of the driveway would have done the rest if no one had looked closely.
The next morning I sat with a judge in a quiet chambers at the Burleigh County courthouse, along with a court-appointed guardian for Nora. The judge watched both videos twice. She asked Tammy directly what she wanted.
“Treatment,” Tammy said. “Thirty days, and then I want to come home to my daughter.”
The judge approved it. Nora would stay with me during the program. Brents petition was withdrawn, and he was ordered to attend a class and supervised visits only until the counselors were satisfied.
I drove Tammy to the treatment center myself on a Friday. At the curb she held my arm and apologized for what she had said about her mother.
I told her that her mother had known how much she was loved, even in the hard years. I also told her that I had counted it up. Every day of her childhood had been a good one.
That Saturday, Nora and I built birdhouse number fifteen. She put on the oversized safety glasses and held the clamp.
“The hugger,” she said. And this one did not leak.