I scooped up Amy as carefully as I could, tucked my son against my bare chest, and sprinted out the door while screaming at the neighbor to get his car started.
At the emergency room, the triage nurse took one look at the baby’s condition and sprinted for a doctor, while another nurse rushed a gurney over for my wife.
A young, stern-looking doctor examined them both, his face tightening with every passing second until he looked at me with an expression that made the blood run cold in my veins.
He pulled back the sleeve of Amy’s gown, revealing dark, purplish bruises encircling her wrists.
The doctor looked at the tiny baby, then looked me dead in the eye.
“Mr. Evans,” he said in a voice as cold as ice. “You need to call the police right now because this is not just normal postpartum weakness, this is a crime.”
I stood there in the bright, buzzing hallway, unable to wrap my head around the nightmare that was unfolding.
CHAPTER 2: THE ANATOMY OF A LIE
“Police?” I repeated, the word tasting like lead in my mouth.
It sounded like a concept from a movie, not something that happened to a man who just wanted to be a good father.
The doctor introduced himself as Dr. Miller, and he didn’t bother trying to make things sound better than they were.
“Your wife is suffering from severe, advanced dehydration, there is a serious infection around her stitches, and those marks on her wrists indicate she was physically restrained for an extended period of time. The baby is also dangerously dehydrated, running a high fever, and has pressure injuries on his limbs, which suggests that someone intentionally kept them from receiving the care they needed.”
My knees felt like they were turning to jelly, and I had to grab onto the wall to keep from collapsing.
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