This cry had panic in it.
I kept glancing at him in the rearview mirror so often I was lucky I didn’t put us all into a ditch. His tiny face was red and shiny with tears, his fists clenched, his legs kicking hard against the straps. Between cries he sucked in broken little breaths that made me grip the steering wheel tighter.
“Hold on, sweetheart,” I whispered, though my own voice shook. “Hold on. Grandma’s getting help. Hold on.”
The bruise had been there under his onesie like a stain blooming where no stain had any right to be.
That was the image that kept replaying behind my eyes each time I blinked.
I had been changing him on the couch because Daniel and Megan’s nursery was a wreck of burp cloths and open drawers and all the things new parents tell themselves they’ll organize later, after they sleep, after the baby settles, after life stops feeling like a series of alarms. Noah had already been fussier than usual when I arrived that afternoon. Megan had blamed gas. Daniel had blamed overstimulation. I had blamed nothing aloud because two-month-old babies are tiny mysteries, and every adult around them is always guessing.
