Chapter 2 - The Morning Mara Refused to Disappear
Her son began to cry.
That sound broke the standoff.
Mara stepped toward the living room.
Judith raised one hand.
“Mara, you’re exhausted. Don’t make this worse.”
“Move.”
“You can barely stand.”
“Move.”
Owen came closer behind her.
“Mara, calm down.”
She turned so sharply pain shot through her abdomen.
“Don’t tell me to calm down after dragging me across the floor.”
His expression tightened.
Mara pulled her phone from the pocket of her loose gray pants.
“If either of you touches me again, I’m calling 911.”
That stopped Owen.
Not remorse.
Calculation.
Mara saw him glance at Judith.
Judith moved aside.
Mara reached the bassinet and lifted her son carefully against her chest.
Her hands shook, but her voice did not.
She took the navy diaper bag too.
“If you packed this for him,” she said, “then it’s leaving with him.”
Owen followed her toward the door.
“You’re in no condition to drive.”
That, unfortunately, was true.
Mara called her older sister, Claire.
She said only four words.
“Please come get us.”
Claire lived twenty minutes away in Carmel, just north of Indianapolis.
She arrived in eleven.
Owen did not touch Mara again while they waited.
Judith sat in the living room holding herself rigid, repeatedly saying Mara was “overreacting.”
Claire entered, saw the red mark on Mara’s cheek, and stopped.
“What happened?”
Mara looked at Owen.
“Ask him.”
Owen folded his arms.
“She hit me too.”
Claire stared at him.
Mara almost laughed from disbelief.
Three days postpartum, struggling to stand, and somehow Owen had already found a way to make the encounter sound mutual.
Claire took the baby carrier.
Mara grabbed the packed diaper bag.
Then Judith said something from behind them.
“She shouldn’t be alone with him today.”
Claire turned.
“Why?”
Judith hesitated.
Mara noticed.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Why?”
Judith looked at Owen.
Once again, neither answered.
Claire helped Mara into the passenger seat.
They drove directly to the hospital where Mara had delivered three days earlier.
And during the entire ride, Mara kept seeing the same thing.
Not Owen’s hand.
Not Judith blocking the bassinet.
May you like
The diaper bag.
Somebody had expected her son to leave that house without her.
