Chapter 1 - BENEATH THE BLUE BLANKETFor several seconds, I could not understand what I was seeing.
Megan’s legs were covered in bruises.
Not one accidental bruise from bumping into furniture. Not the harmless swelling pregnant women sometimes experienced.
There were dark purple marks around her knees, yellowing fingerprints along her thighs, and angry red burns spreading across her left calf. Her right ankle was swollen nearly twice its normal size.
A strip of torn bedsheet had been wrapped around it like a bandage.
My hands went numb.
“Meg…”
She immediately pulled her nightgown lower, trying to cover herself.
Behind me, my mother inhaled sharply.
Then she spoke in the calmest voice imaginable.
“She must have fallen.”
I turned slowly.
My mother stood beside the bedroom door holding her bag of dinner rolls. Her expression was carefully arranged into concern, but her eyes were fixed on Megan’s injuries with something colder than surprise.
Recognition.
She had already seen them.
Megan began trembling.
“Please make her leave.”
My mother stepped forward.
“Jake, don’t let her manipulate you. She has been unstable for weeks. Pregnancy can cause emotional problems. She may have done this to herself.”
Megan let out a broken sound.
That was when I saw another mark near her ankle.
A narrow cut shaped like the sharp edge of a metal buckle.
My eyes dropped to my mother’s handbag.
A black leather belt hung partly out of it.
I had seen that belt before. She wore it around her winter coat.
Its buckle was rectangular, with one corner slightly bent inward.
The exact shape of the wound on Megan’s ankle.
My stomach turned.
“Mom,” I whispered. “How did you know she was hiding something under the blanket?”
My mother’s face tightened.
“I told you. A woman knows.”
“No.” My voice rose. “You said she was covering something up. You kept saying it. Over and over.”
“Because she was.”
“You knew.”
Megan grabbed my wrist.
“Jake, don’t argue with her. Just call someone.”
My mother moved toward the bed.
“You are not bringing strangers into this family.”
Megan recoiled so violently that a cry escaped her lips.
That movement told me everything my mind was still struggling to accept.
My wife was not afraid of being exposed.
She was afraid of my mother coming closer.
I stepped between them.
“Don’t touch her.”
My mother stared at me as though I had slapped her.
“I am your mother.”
“And she is my wife.”
“She has poisoned you against me.”
“No,” Megan whispered. “You did that yourself.”
My mother lunged around me.
It happened so quickly that I barely understood her intention. One second she was standing by the dresser, and the next she was reaching for Megan’s arm.
I caught her wrist.
“Stop!”
My mother’s bag fell.
The dinner rolls rolled across the floor.
So did a small silver key.
It landed beside my shoe.
I recognized it instantly.
It was a copy of our apartment key.
I had never given her one.
My mother looked down at it.
Then back at me.
The last pieces fell into place.
The mornings Megan seemed anxious when I left.
The afternoons my mother somehow knew exactly what Megan had eaten.
The comments about the blue blanket.
The way Megan tensed whenever the building’s elevator stopped on our floor.
“You’ve been coming here while I’m at work,” I said.
My mother lifted her chin.
“I came to check on her.”
“With a key you copied without permission?”
“She needed supervision.”
Megan began crying harder.
“She came almost every day.”
The words were barely audible, but they struck harder than a scream.
I turned toward my wife.
“What did she do?”
Megan’s lips shook.
“She said I was taking you away from her. She said the baby would make you stop paying her bills.”
My mother scoffed.
“That is ridiculous.”
“She found out I knew about the money,” Megan continued.
My mother went still.
“What money?” I asked.
Megan looked at me with terror and shame.
“The money missing from our savings account.”
I felt the room tilt.
Our savings account contained everything we had put aside for a larger apartment after the baby arrived.
Nearly twenty-six thousand dollars.
I had not checked it in weeks.
Megan pointed toward the bottom drawer of the nightstand.
“There are statements inside.”
My mother stepped toward the drawer.
I blocked her again.
“Don’t.”
Her expression changed.
The mask of concern disappeared.
For one brief second, I saw rage.
Pure, naked rage.
Then Megan suddenly cried out and clutched her stomach.
Her face drained of color.
“Jake…”
I rushed to her side.
“What is it?”
She looked down.
A dark stain was spreading across the bedsheet.
“My baby,” she gasped. “Something’s wrong with my baby.”
I grabbed my phone and called emergency services.
My mother headed toward the door.
I caught her arm before she could leave.
“You’re staying.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You have no right to hold me here.”
“You knew she was hurt, and you did nothing.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
From the bed, Megan spoke through clenched teeth.
“Yes, you did.”
My mother stopped struggling.
Megan looked directly at her for the first time.
“You told me no one would believe me.”
Sirens began screaming somewhere in the distance.
Megan tightened her grip on my hand.
Then she looked at me.
“Please,” she whispered. “Believe me now.”
I sank beside her and pressed my forehead against hers.
“I do.”
May you like
But as the sirens grew louder, another terrifying thought entered my mind.
Believing her now might already be too late.
