“Yes.”
“Keep your call log.
Don’t delete anything.”
“I won’t.”
A doctor appeared at the end of the hall before I could ask another question.
The scan showed a small fracture in Ethan’s forearm.
Treatable.
Painful, but expected to heal well.
I heard only fragments after the word fracture.
The doctor explained the treatment, the follow-up, the warning signs to watch for.
I made myself listen.
I made myself ask questions.
Because anger could wait.
Ethan couldn’t.
By early evening his arm had been stabilized, and he had finally stopped trembling.
Then his mother arrived.
She came through the hospital doors pale and breathless.
The moment she saw Ethan, she covered her mouth.
“What happened?”
I stared at her.
“You don’t know?”
“No.
I was out.
He called and said there’d been an accident, then the police called me.”
Her eyes moved to Ethan’s arm.
“He said Ethan fell.”
Ethan’s entire body changed when she said those words.
His shoulders tightened.
His eyes dropped.
I saw it.
So did the officer standing near the doorway.
His mother approached slowly.
“Baby?”
Ethan looked at her and began crying again.
“He hit me.”
She stopped.
There are moments when a person’s face seems to lose all its defenses at once.
That happened to her.
“He what?”
Ethan didn’t repeat himself.
He didn’t need to.
The officer asked her to step into the corridor.
I remained with Ethan while she answered questions.
Through the narrow window I could see her speaking quickly, then shaking her head.
At one point she pressed both hands against her temples.
Later, the officer explained the part that mattered.
She confirmed she had left Ethan in the boyfriend’s care for a short period that afternoon.
She also confirmed the baseball bat belonged in a storage area, not beside the couch where officers found it.
That didn’t prove everything by itself.
But the pieces were beginning to fit together.
The child’s immediate phone call.
His description of what happened.
The man’s voice on the call.
The abrupt disconnection.
Ethan hiding behind the couch.
The bat near that same area.
