PART 4
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“I should never have hit you.”
“No,” I said quietly. “You shouldn’t have.”
She nodded through her tears.
My husband didn’t say anything.
He didn’t need to.
The hospital had already documented what happened. The nurses had seen the pigment come away on the gauze. Security had removed his mother from the floor. There was no longer any room for the accusation to survive simply because someone had shouted it loudly enough.
But one question remained.
Why had his mother done it?
My husband seemed to be asking himself the same thing.
He stepped into the hallway and made a phone call.
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“What?” I asked.
He sat beside me.
“She called my sister before she came here.”
I waited.
“She told her she was going to prove something about the baby.”
My stomach tightened.
“What exactly did she say?”
“She didn’t say what the substance was. But she told my sister she had been watching the baby since we announced the pregnancy.”
I looked down at my son.
Watching.
The word made the room feel colder.
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My husband continued.
“She also told my sister she had already decided the baby wasn’t mine before he was born.”
My mother looked up sharply.
“So she planned this?”
He nodded.
“That’s what it sounds like.”
I remembered my mother-in-law’s words beside the bassinet.
Your husband needs to see what you’ve done.
She hadn’t been confused.
She hadn’t discovered something by accident.
She had arrived with a conclusion already formed and used our newborn son as the object she believed would prove it.
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My husband leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“I should have stopped her sooner,” he said.
I reached for his hand.
“You weren’t in the room.”
“I left you with my mother because I thought you were safe.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
He looked at our son.
“I know that now.”
A nurse came in again to check the baby’s vital signs.
Everything remained stable.
That was the first real relief I had felt since waking up.
But the family problem had not disappeared.
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My mother was still sitting across from me.
She hadn’t left.
After several minutes, she finally spoke.
“There is something else.”
My husband looked at her.
My mother twisted her hands together.
“Your mother called me before the birth.”
I felt my chest tighten.
“When?”
“A few days ago.”
“What did she want?”
My mother hesitated.
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“She wanted me to watch you.”
My husband stood.
“What does that mean?”
“She said you had become distant. She said your wife was controlling you. She said I should pay attention to whether she acted nervous when people mentioned the baby.”
She looked ashamed.
“I didn’t tell you because I thought she was being dramatic.”
“But you listened.”
“Yes.”
“And when she accused me today, you believed her.”
My mother nodded.
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“I did.”
That honesty hurt more than another excuse would have.
My husband looked toward the hallway where his mother had disappeared.
“She was building a story before our son was even born.”
Nobody answered him.
Then my phone buzzed on the bedside table.
My husband picked it up because I couldn’t easily reach it.
There were several missed calls.
All from his mother.
Then another message appeared.
He read it once and went completely still.
“What?” I asked.
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He handed me the phone.
The message was short.
She had written that if he wanted the truth, he needed to check something she had left at home.
Underneath that was an address.
Our address.
My husband looked at me.
“I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
“You’re not leaving me alone.”
The nurse immediately stepped in.
“You don’t have to go anywhere tonight. If there is something at your home that concerns you, let someone else retrieve it.”
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