Chương 7
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Travis, your name came up at another hospital tonight.”
“I know.”
“So someone connected you.”
He nodded.
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
He looked exhausted.
“Emma, I am trying to tell you something I have spent years trying not to think about.”
I wanted to scream.
I wanted him to stop talking in pieces.
I wanted him to hand me the complete truth and let me decide what to do with it.
Instead, he gave me fragments.
Like everyone else.
“Then start from the beginning.”
He looked at me.
“The beginning?”
“Yes.”
He was quiet for a long time.
Then he nodded.
“When Ava got hurt, Megan blamed me.”
“You said that.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“I mean she blamed me in private first.”
I waited.
“She told me she knew I didn’t mean to hurt Ava.”
My chest tightened.
“But?”
“But she said she needed someone to blame.”
I stared at him.
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“Why would she say that?”
“Because she was angry.”
“At you?”
“At herself.”
He looked away.
“She was working. She had missed a lot of things. She was tired. She felt guilty.”
“And you became the person who could carry that guilt.”
He did not answer.
He did not need to.
The silence did.
A knock came at the door.
Denise stepped inside.
Her expression changed when she saw our faces.
She knew something had happened.
“What did Megan say?” she asked.
Travis looked at her.
“How did you know we spoke?”
“She contacted the hospital.”
My heart dropped.
“What?”
Denise looked at me.
“She requested to speak with the social work team.”
“Why?”
Denise glanced at Travis.
“Because she said she believes she may have information relevant to Lucy’s injuries.”
The room went cold.
Travis stood.
“She called you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“About ten minutes ago.”
He looked shocked.
Not angry.
Not surprised.
Shocked.
“What did she tell you?”
Denise hesitated.
“She asked if you had been alone with Lucy.”
I looked at Travis.
He looked back at me.
For once, neither of us had an answer.
“Why would she ask that?” I whispered.
Denise did not respond immediately.
Then she said, “Because she says the same thing happened with Ava.”
My knees weakened.
Rachel reached for my arm.
“What same thing?”
Denise opened the folder again.
“She says Mr. Morgan left the room shortly before Ava was injured.”
Travis went completely still.
“That’s not what happened.”
Denise looked at him.
“Then tell me what happened.”
“I already did.”
“No.”
Her voice remained calm.
“You told people what you remembered.”
She looked at him carefully.
“I am asking if there is anything you left out.”
The silence was unbearable.
I watched my husband.
Not the man from our wedding pictures.
Not the father dancing with Lucy in the kitchen.
The man standing in a hospital room while two different stories collided.
“I left out that I was scared,” he said.
Denise waited.
“I left out that I was ashamed.”
“Of what?”
He swallowed.
“That I had been texting Megan that night.”
My eyes moved to him.
“What?”
“She was my girlfriend.”
“That was before she came home?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell investigators?”
“Because it looked bad.”
The words came quietly.
Because they were true.
“It looked like I was distracted.”
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
He looked at Lucy.
“I was.”
Nobody spoke.
“I was texting Megan while Ava was playing.”
My stomach twisted.
“About what?”
“An argument.”
“With her?”
“Yes.”
“What about?”
He shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters.”
He closed his eyes.
“She wanted me to move in.”
The answer surprised me.
“She said I wasn’t committed.”
I looked at him.
“And you were arguing about that while watching a toddler?”
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt.
But it also made him seem more human.
More flawed.
Less like a monster.
And somehow that scared me more.
Because monsters are easier to understand.
People are not.
Denise looked at the folder.
“There is something else.”
Nobody moved.
She removed a single page.
“This is from Ava’s follow-up interview.”
Travis stared at it.
“You said she never talked about it.”
“She didn’t at the time.”
Denise looked at me.
“She said she remembered hearing someone argue.”
I felt my fingers tighten around my sleeve.
“Who?”
Denise looked at Travis.
“He says it was him and Megan.”
Travis nodded.
“Yes.”
“But Ava said the voices were different.”
My husband looked up.
“What?”
“She said there was another person there.”
The room went silent.
“Who?” I asked.
Denise shook her head.
“She was too young to identify them.”
I looked at Lucy.
Then at Travis.
Then at the papers.
The story I thought I was uncovering had changed again.
This was no longer just about whether my husband had hurt our daughter.
It was about whether everyone involved had been looking in the wrong direction for years.
And somewhere beneath all of it was the question I could not escape.
Who had been in my apartment before I came home?
The question followed me all the way home.
Not because I had an answer.
Because I did not.
By the time the sun started coming up, I was sitting in the corner chair beside Lucy’s hospital bed watching the numbers on the monitor change one by one.
Her breathing had steadied.
Her fever had lowered.
The doctor said those were good signs.
Good signs.
Another phrase that sounded too small for the kind of night we had survived.
Rachel had gone home for a few hours to shower and bring clean clothes.
She promised she would come back before lunch.
She also promised she would not call everyone in our family and announce that my marriage was collapsing in a hospital room.
That was Rachel’s version of support.
She protected your privacy while still being ready to destroy anyone who deserved it.
May you like
Travis had not slept.
He sat on the other side of the room with his elbows on his knees.
