Chapter 3 — THE EMERGENCY ROOM

The pediatric side of the emergency department at one in the morning is quieter than people expect.

There was a teenager with a wrist in a towel and a man asleep sitting up with a toddler across his lap.

Theo went back first.

Mild dehydration.

Severe diaper dermatitis, which is a clinical way of describing something you should not have to look at.

Underfed but not dangerously.

The resident was maybe thirty-two and she was gentle with him and matter-of-fact with me, which was exactly the correct combination and I was grateful for it.

"How long between feeds?"

"One bottle in about eight hours, best I can tell."

"Who was watching him?"

"My daughter."

She looked up.

"How old is your daughter?"

"Seven."

She wrote that down.

They took Josie next.

The doctor had her sit on the table and he pressed along her shoulders, both sides, working out from the neck.

"Tell me when it hurts."

"It's okay."

"Josie," I said. "You don't have to be okay."

She looked at me and then she looked at the doctor and she said, "There. And there. And on the bottom part."

Muscle strain across the lumbar.

Bruising on both shoulders — the kind you get from a strap, or from a weight riding in the same place for hours.

Dehydration.

Exhaustion.

"Nothing structural," he said. "Nothing that won't heal."

He meant it kindly.

It did not land kindly.

Nothing that won't heal is a fine thing to say about a bike accident. It is a strange thing to say about an injury that required six and a half hours of a child deciding, over and over, not to put her brother down.

A nurse came in with a laptop on a rolling stand.

Her badge said COLLEEN.

She had the particular face nurses get when they are about to ask you something they are required to ask you.

"Mr. Whitaker, I need to go through a few questions."

"Okay."

"Who was supervising the children this evening?"

"My wife and my mother-in-law."

"Were they present?"

"No."

"For how long were the children unsupervised?"

"My mother-in-law left at 4:12. My wife left at 6:06. I got home at 12:17."

Colleen stopped typing.

"That's very specific."

"I have video."

She looked at me for a second.

"Of what?"

"Of both of them leaving. With audio. Timestamped."

"You have cameras in your home?"

"I install them for a living."

She nodded slowly and typed for a while.

"Have you contacted your wife?"

"Not yet."

That was the one that surprised her. I watched it land.

"Are you planning to?"

"Not tonight."

"Can I ask why?"

"Because tonight she'd have an explanation. In about nine hours she'll have to have it in writing."

Colleen sat back.

"You understand that I'm a mandated reporter."

"Yes."

"I have to file a report of suspected neglect. Tonight. It goes to Wake County."

"I know."

"Most people argue with me at this point."

"I'm not going to argue with you. Can I give you the video?"

She had to check on that.

It turned out I could not give it to her, but I could give it to the investigator, and I could give a copy to the officer who came at 2:20 a.m. and sat in the family waiting room with me and wrote things down in a notebook with a golf course logo on it.

His name was Deputy Alvarado.

He asked me if I felt the children were safe going home.

I told him the children would be safe going home because I was going home with them and I was not leaving.

He asked if there were weapons in the house.

I said one shotgun, locked, and told him where.

He asked if I had any reason to believe my wife would return that night.

I said no.

He was right about that and so was I. Corinne did not come home that night.

At 4:50 in the morning I carried both my kids into the house through the front door, and Josie asked me if we were in trouble now, and I said no, and she asked if Mommy was in trouble, and I said I don't know, sweetheart, and that was the first true thing I had said to her all night that I did not enjoy saying.

I put Theo down.

I sat on the edge of Josie's bed until she went under.

Then I went downstairs and cleaned the kitchen floor, because it was 5:30 in the morning and there was nothing else on earth I could do with my hands.

I did not throw the bottle away.

I put it in a freezer bag.

I did not wash the dish towel.

Same bag.

I photographed the floor, the sock under the chair, the coloring book, the torn cracker sleeve, and the crayon, which was still where it fell at 4:12:11 p.m.

At 6:15 a.m. I made coffee and sat at the island and opened my laptop and did the thing I should have done a year earlier.

I logged into the bank.