Chapter 2 - THE QUESTION TAYLOR ASKED
Grant carried Lily outside before the garage door could close completely. He ducked beneath the descending panels, scraping his shoulder, and ran toward his truck.
Evelyn’s sedan remained still.
The driver’s door never opened.
Grant placed Lily on the passenger seat, turned the heater to its highest setting, then called 911. His hands shook so badly that he gave the dispatcher the wrong address twice.
By the time the ambulance arrived, Evelyn’s car was gone.
At Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs, nurses wrapped Lily in heated blankets and placed warm packs near her chest and neck. Grant stood beside the bed in his T-shirt, still wearing frost from the freezer on his sleeves.
Taylor came through the emergency-room doors wearing navy scrubs and hospital clogs. Her hair had fallen halfway out of its clip.
She rushed toward Lily.
“Baby.”
Lily turned her face into Grant’s side.
Taylor stopped.
Grant expected her to ask what happened. He expected disbelief, panic, perhaps anger.
Instead, Taylor whispered, “Did she make you count?”
Grant stared at her.
“What did you say?”
Taylor looked at him as though she had forgotten he was there.
“Did Lily tell you how long she was inside?”
“That’s not what you asked.”
A nurse stepped between them to adjust the monitor attached to Lily’s finger. Taylor pressed her lips together and looked down.
Grant followed her into the hall.
“You knew something.”
“I knew my mother used punishment I didn’t agree with.”
“She put our daughter in a freezer.”
“I didn’t know about the freezer.”
“But you asked about counting.”
Taylor glanced through the window in the door. Lily was watching them.
“Not here.”
“Then where?”
“Not while she can hear us fighting again.”
Again.
The word lodged in Grant’s chest.
A social worker named Maribel Santos arrived twenty minutes later. She explained that the hospital was required to report suspected child abuse. Lily could not be discharged until both parents agreed to a temporary safety plan.
“No contact with Evelyn Mercer,” Maribel said. “Not at home, school, church, or through relatives.”
“I agree,” Grant said.
Taylor did not respond immediately.
Grant turned toward her. “Why are you hesitating?”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Taylor signed the form.
Her signature was controlled and neat, but the pen left a dark dent in the paper.
Maribel asked who had been responsible for Lily that evening.
Taylor answered too quickly.
“She was with me.”
Grant looked at her scrubs. “You were working.”
“My mother was supposed to help for one hour.”
“You just said she wasn’t supposed to be alone with Lily.”
Taylor closed her eyes.
May you like
Grant understood then that the freezer was not the first secret in their family.
It was only the first one he had been forced to see.
