Chapter 10 - The First Person I Called Was Not the Police—It Was the Pediatric Burn Specialist
I wanted Meredith arrested.
I wanted Caleb out of my sight.
I wanted the whole house emptied and scrubbed clean.
But first, I needed my daughter treated.
The moment Caleb’s hands stopped shaking enough to move, I took Elara back from him—he didn’t resist this time—and called the pediatric burn specialist our pediatrician had once recommended for a kitchen accident that never happened.
The doctor told us exactly what to do until we got there.
Cool running water, loose sterile covering, no ointment until examination.
While I treated Elara’s hand, Caleb stood across the room like a man who had wandered into the wreckage of his own life and finally recognized it as his. Meredith tried twice to leave.
Twice Caleb blocked the doorway.
By then he understood that if she walked out, she would run.
I called my brother next.
Then my lawyer.
Then the police.
I did not call anyone to ask permission. That version of me had ended on the floor beneath a broken clothing rack.
By the time officers arrived, the room still held everything exactly as it had after the attack: the scorched cloth, the cracked wall, the fallen rack, the iron on the floor, the bassinet beside the board, and the camera above the door.
Meredith tried a final lie.
“I was ironing. It slipped.”
The officer looked at the footage.
“That’s not what happened.”
She stopped talking after that.
Caleb gave a statement too. So did I. For once, he did not try to shape the story in his favor.
When the officer asked if he had kicked me, Caleb answered yes.
When asked why, he said:
“Because I believed the wrong person.”
It wasn’t enough.
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But it was the first true thing he had said to me in weeks.
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