Chapter 2
Chapter 2
The iron was set to high. The cord was taut. Steam hissed from its vents. Liam’s back was marked with pale, shiny scars layered over red welts and fresh angry burns. The pattern was not random. It was methodical. Deliberate. The iron plate itself was spotless. No scorched cotton. No wrinkled shirt beneath it.
Only skin.
Then Michael spoke.
“What are you doing?”
His voice came out low and even, which was somehow more frightening than a scream.
Vanessa dropped the iron.
It hit the tile with a violent crack and skidded sideways, still spitting steam. For an instant panic flashed over her face, naked and ugly. Then it was gone, replaced by something rehearsed, almost offended.
“Michael. You’re early.”
Liam made a broken sound in the back of his throat.
Vanessa lifted her hands slightly, palms out, as if she were the calm one in the room, as if this were all some unfortunate misunderstanding. “This isn’t what it looks like. Liam has been acting up again. I was trying to discipline him. He exaggerates things. You know how emotional he gets, especially since—”
Liam ran.
He slammed into Michael so hard Michael staggered back a step. His son wrapped both arms around his waist and held on with the desperate strength of a drowning child catching hold of something solid. Michael dropped instantly into a crouch, gathering him close with hands that had suddenly forgotten how to be steady.
“Hey,” he said, voice breaking on the word. “Hey, champ. I’ve got you.”
Liam’s whole body trembled against him.
Michael could feel the heat coming off his skin.
He looked over Liam’s head at Vanessa, and the temperature in his own blood seemed to fall to ice.
“Don’t move.”
“Michael, listen to me—”
“Don’t.”
The single word landed like a door slamming shut.
He drew back enough to see Liam’s face. There were tears on his cheeks, but worse than the tears was the effort Liam was making not to cry harder, as if he had already learned that crying was dangerous. Michael brushed damp hair off his forehead.
“Tell me what happened.”
Liam didn’t answer. His eyes flicked toward the fallen iron, then toward Vanessa.
Michael felt something savage turn over inside him.
“Liam,” he said gently, “look at me.”
His son obeyed.
And in a voice so thin it hardly sounded human, Liam whispered, “She said I wasn’t allowed to cry for Mom.”
The word struck Michael like a fist to the sternum.
Mom.
Emma.
Even after two years, her absence could still rip the air out of his lungs. Emma, with her laugh that used to fill rooms before she entered them. Emma, who had known how to make Liam eat vegetables by pretending broccoli florets were tiny trees and carrot sticks were swords. Emma, who had died on a rain-slick road at 10:47 p.m. when a truck lost control and crossed the median.
Michael had thought the worst thing that could ever happen to his son was losing his mother.
He had been wrong.
Very carefully, he turned Liam so that his back faced him. He lifted the shirt.
His breath stopped.
Burns. Some narrow. Some broad. Some faded to glossy ridges. Some still raw and red. Bruises along his ribs. A healing mark on his shoulder blade. The room tipped so hard Michael had to brace himself against the washing machine to stay upright.
“Oh my God.”
Vanessa stepped forward immediately, seizing on the words like they were an opening.
“You’re overreacting,” she snapped. “Children get hurt. He throws tantrums. He runs into things. He scratches himself. Since the nanny left, he’s been impossible. I’ve been doing everything in this house while you disappear for work and—”
“Did you fire the nanny?”
Vanessa’s jaw tightened. “She undermined me. She didn’t respect me in my own home.”
Michael looked up slowly. “Did you fire her?”
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“I handled it because you told me to handle things,” Vanessa said, and now irritation was replacing panic. “That’s what wives do, Michael. They run the home while their husbands are gone making money.”
The sentence was so close to something she had said before, in a lighter tone, over wine in the kitchen, that Michael almost heard the echo of his own stupidity answering it.
