Chapter 2 - The Family Agreement Mark Kept Changing
Paramedics reached the Mercer house in Naperville eleven minutes later.
Noah was examined first.
Sienna insisted on it.
So did Evelyn.
The infant's breathing was steady. His color was good. There were no obvious injuries, but because he was three weeks old and because nobody could give the paramedics a clean account of what had happened, they recommended evaluation at Edward Hospital.
Trina was taken separately for the blow Sienna had delivered with the extinguisher.
Mark tried to follow her ambulance.
An officer stopped him long enough to ask whether he was Noah's father.
“Yes.”
“Then your son is going to the hospital too.”
Mark rubbed both hands over his face.
That was when he finally looked toward Noah.
Sienna noticed.
She hated that she noticed.
Three weeks earlier, she had been proud of him.
Noah had not been planned.
His mother, Laura Bennett, had dated Mark for less than a year before the relationship collapsed. Trina had entered Mark's life afterward—or at least that was the timeline Mark had given everyone.
Laura had suffered severe postpartum hypertension six days after Noah's birth and had been readmitted to the hospital.
She had agreed to let Noah stay temporarily at Mark's house for one reason.
Evelyn would be there.
Laura did not trust Trina.
Everyone knew that.
Mark simply behaved as if knowing it and respecting it were the same thing.
At the hospital, Laura arrived from her sister's house wearing sweatpants beneath an oversized coat, her hospital wristband still around one wrist.
She took Noah from Evelyn without greeting anybody.
Then she looked at Mark.
“You promised me.”
Mark glanced at the police officer standing down the hallway.
“This isn't what they're making it sound like.”
Laura's expression sharpened.
“What are they making it sound like?”
Mark lowered his voice.
“Trina made a stupid joke. Mom overreacted. Then Sienna came in swinging a fire extinguisher.”
Evelyn stared at her son.
“She dragged me across the floor by my hair.”
“She panicked.”
“She put my grandson in a jar.”
“For a second.”
Sienna felt the same cold sensation she'd felt in the dining room.
Again.
A second.
Not approximately.
Not maybe.
Not I heard.
A second.
Laura heard it too.
“How long were you there, Mark?”
His shoulders tightened.
“I wasn't.”
“You said one second.”
“Because that's what Trina told me.”
Sienna cut in.
“When?”
Mark looked at her.
“She said something before the ambulance took her.”
Sienna knew that was false.
She had been beside Trina the entire time.
Trina had never spoken to Mark.
Laura shifted Noah higher against her chest.
“I want him away from that house.”
Mark's face hardened.
“You don't get to decide everything because you're angry.”
“No. I get to decide where my three-week-old sleeps while I'm recovering because that's what our temporary agreement says.”
Mark glanced down.
That tiny movement caught Sienna's attention.
He knew she was right.
Laura turned toward the nurse.
“I need the hospital social worker.”
Mark looked up immediately.
“Laura.”
She ignored him.
And when Sienna saw the panic return to her father's face, she understood something else.
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Mark wasn't simply afraid Trina would get blamed.
He was afraid someone would start asking questions he had already prepared answers for.
