Chapter 2 - EVERYONE CALLED 911Three people called 911.
Ben.
Our neighbor David.
And Madison, who was sixteen and later apologized because she thought multiple calls might “confuse the ambulances.”
It didn’t.
The dispatcher sorted it out.
The bat was no longer in Diane’s hands by the time police arrived.
Ben’s friend Aaron had grabbed it after the first strike.
Not heroically.
Diane lifted it again.
Aaron came from the side and pulled it backward.
She screamed at him.
He dropped the bat behind the sofa and physically moved away.
Good choice.
Nobody wanted a wrestling match with an enraged sixty-five-year-old holding a weapon.
I remember pieces.
Lily screaming.
My blood dripping onto the shoulder of her cardigan.
Ben taking her.
Me refusing to let go.
Someone saying:
“Megan, let him hold her.”
I looked at Lily’s eyes.
Red tears continued to form.
Not pouring.
Thin streaks.
Both sides.
I thought:
She’s bleeding from her eyes.
Then:
My mother hit me and my daughter is bleeding from her eyes.
That was the point where my legs stopped cooperating.
Ben lowered me onto the floor.
He knelt.
“Stay awake.”
“I’m awake.”
“Look at me.”
“Lily.”
“I have her.”
“No, Lily.”
“She’s right here.”
She was.
Ben held her against his chest.
Her eyes were open.
Crying.
No obvious cut around them.
No blood on her forehead.
No visible injury to the eyeballs.
That made the image worse.
Where was it coming from?
Diane stood near the dining-room doorway.
Olivia held her arm.
Diane kept saying:
“She made me crazy.”
Not:
I’m sorry.
Not:
Is Lily okay?
“She made me crazy.”
Police entered.
Commands.
Hands visible.
People moved.
The bat was secured.
An officer put Diane in a chair and told her not to move.
She started crying.
“I didn’t mean—”
She stopped.
No completed sentence.
Paramedics reached me.
One examined my scalp.
“Significant bleeding. Likely scalp laceration.”
“Lily.”
Another paramedic looked at my daughter.
His face stayed controlled.
That helped.
“Her airway is good. She’s alert.”
“She’s crying blood.”
“I see it.”
“What is that?”
“I don’t know yet.”
That honesty nearly destroyed me.
He asked whether Lily had been struck.
“No.”
“Did she fall?”
“No.”
“She was in your arms when you hit the wall?”
“Yes.”
“Did her face hit anything?”
I didn’t know.
Maybe my shoulder.
Maybe my collarbone.
Everything had happened inside two seconds.
“We’re taking both of you.”
Ben climbed into the ambulance with Lily.
I was on the stretcher.
Before the doors closed, I saw Olivia standing in the doorway of our new home.
White envelope still visible inside her open handbag.
She looked at me.
May you like
I looked at her.
Neither of us spoke.
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