“She’s not here.”
His voice shook on every word.
“Who is there with you?”
He tried to answer and started crying harder.
“Noah,” I said, slower now. “Listen to me. Tell Daddy what happened.”
There was a tiny pause, like he was looking over his shoulder.
Then he whispered, “Mommy’s boyfriend… Travis… hit me with the baseball bat. My arm hurts bad. He said if I cry, he’ll hit me again.”
For a second, I could not understand the sentence.
I understood every word by itself.
Baseball bat.
Hit me.
Arm hurts.
Again.
But my mind would not put those words onto the body of my child.
Then a man’s voice roared in the background.
“Who are you talking to? Give me that phone!”
Noah made a sound that still wakes me up sometimes.
The call cut off.
The conference room went dead silent.
A pen stopped tapping.
Someone’s chair creaked.
My manager said my name, but I was already moving.
My keys were in my right pocket.
My laptop stayed open on the table.
I do not remember picking up my jacket, but later someone told me I dropped it in the hallway and never turned around.
At the elevator, my hands were shaking so badly that I pressed the down button three times.
I was twenty minutes away from Lena’s house on a good day.
On a downtown lunch-hour day, with delivery trucks and red lights and construction cones, twenty minutes could become thirty.
Noah was four years old.
He was alone with a grown man who had just hurt him.
I could feel rage rising in me so fast it almost became useless.
Rage wanted me to scream.
Rage wanted me to throw the phone.
Rage wanted me to drive like an idiot and become one more problem between my son and help.
But panic only helps the people who are not depending on you.
I needed action.
So I called my brother.
