I answered honestly, explaining that only Adrian and Caroline usually cared for him, though both had been exhausted lately.
A few hours later, Ethan was stabilized, and I finally received a call from Adrian.
“Mom, where are you,” he asked, panic already in his voice.
“I’m at the hospital,” I said slowly. “Ethan was hurt.”
“What do you mean hurt,” he demanded.
“There’s a bruise on his stomach, and the doctor says someone squeezed him hard enough to cause internal bleeding,” I explained.
“That’s impossible,” he said immediately.
“I know, but someone did,” I replied.
Then Caroline took the phone, her voice shaking as she said something that changed everything.
“He already had that bruise yesterday.”
My breath caught as I asked, “You saw it yesterday and didn’t go to the hospital.”
“We thought it was just a mark,” she said weakly.
I asked who else had been with Ethan, and after a long hesitation, Adrian admitted they had hired a part time nanny two weeks earlier.
When the doctor returned with another scan, he pointed out that the marks on Ethan’s abdomen were too small to belong to an adult hand.
“These look like they could be from a child,” he said.
A child.
