Until then, my mother had been treating the whole thing like a family argument that had gotten out of control.
Now she understood that an unknown substance had actually been placed on a newborn child.
She looked at me.
“I should never have hit you.”
“No,” I said quietly. “You shouldn’t have.”
She nodded through her tears.
My husband didn’t say anything.
He didn’t need to.
The hospital had already documented what happened. The nurses had seen the pigment come away on the gauze. Security had removed his mother from the floor. There was no longer any room for the accusation to survive simply because someone had shouted it loudly enough.
But one question remained.
Why had his mother done it?
My husband seemed to be asking himself the same thing.
He stepped into the hallway and made a phone call.
When he returned, his expression had changed.
