You know how dramatic Ethan gets.
I took screenshots.
I did not respond.
Forty minutes later, Melissa came out.
Her face told me before her mouth did.
“He disclosed physical abuse.”
I thought I was prepared.
I wasn’t.
“How long?”
“Several months.”
I closed my eyes.
“Who?”
“You know.”
I did.
Still, she said it.
“Marcus.”
My husband.
The man whose shirts hung beside mine.
The man whose toothbrush stood three inches from Ethan’s.
The man I had kissed goodbye before work that morning.
“What did he do to his jaw?”
Melissa was careful.
“Ethan says Marcus struck him with a wooden yard tool after Ethan refused to clean the garage.”
My stomach turned.
“The wound?”
“A splinter or fragment may have punctured the skin.”
“And he didn’t bring him to a doctor?”
“Ethan says Marcus told him that if he told you, you would think he was lying and send him away.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Send him away?”
“He told Ethan you had chosen your marriage and that there wasn’t room in your life for a difficult child.”
I put one hand over my mouth.
That was why Ethan never told me.
Not because he didn’t trust me.
Because someone had been actively teaching him not to.
Melissa continued.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
She placed a plastic evidence bag on the table.
Inside was a small black device.
An old phone.
Cracked screen.
“Where did that come from?”
“Ethan’s backpack.”
I recognized it.
Daniel’s old phone.
After Daniel died, I never threw it away.
Ethan sometimes used it to look at photographs because several of his father’s old videos were stored there.
“I didn’t know he still carried that.”
“He’s been recording.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
Melissa looked toward the interview room.
“He said his dad once told him that if something scary happens, getting proof can help adults understand.”
Daniel had been a safety supervisor.
He documented everything.
