Chapter 5 - The Blue Folder
Ryan slapped the burning page onto the carpet and crushed the flame under his shoe.
Linda grabbed the folder.
I grabbed the other side.
"Let go!"
"No."
The cover tore down the middle.
A dozen papers scattered across the floor.
One slid beneath the dresser.
Ryan picked up the nurse's statement.
Elaine Foster had written it thirty-two years earlier.
Anna arrived unresponsive. Clothing wet with formula. Milk visible in hair and ear canal. Mother stated infant "needed to learn" not to refuse feeding.
My knees nearly gave out.
The room from twenty minutes earlier flashed in my head.
Noah screaming.
Milk in his hair.
Linda telling me he needed to learn.
Same words.
Same act.
Ryan whispered, "You did this to Anna."
Linda shook her head.
"She choked. It was an accident."
"You poured milk on her?"
"She wouldn't eat!"
The scream came out of Ryan before he could stop it.
"SHE WAS EIGHT MONTHS OLD!"
Noah began crying downstairs.
I ran to him.
When I came back, Ryan was standing alone in the hallway.
"Where is she?"
He looked toward the open back door.
Linda was gone.
So was the torn half of the blue folder.
Then the doorbell rang.
Two Dallas County sheriff's deputies stood on the porch.
The taller one looked at the bruise forming on my wrist.
Then at Noah.
"Mrs. Mercer? We received a report that you assaulted your mother-in-law while holding your infant son."
I looked at Ryan.
May you like
Linda hadn't run.
She had called first.
