Chapter 2 - the night the bathroom door shook)
Three weeks earlier, the bathroom tile was freezing beneath my knees.
Noah's cotton sleeper was warm against my chest.
His crying came in short, breathless bursts while I checked his face, his arms, his legs, his tiny hands.
I kept telling myself he was all right.
I needed him to be all right.
Outside the bathroom door, Grant paced across the bedroom.
"Open the door, Elise. You're making this worse."
His mother answered before I could.
"If she has nothing to hide, why is she locking herself in there?"
I pressed my back against the bathtub.
Blood had stopped dripping from my nose, but I could still taste it at the back of my throat.
My scalp burned where Grant had grabbed my hair.
The last five minutes kept replaying in pieces.
Noah crying.
Grant shouting.
Marlene standing beside the bed.
My hand reaching for the baby.
Grant grabbing the back of my hair.
My knees hitting the floor.
Marlene saying, "Look at him. He does not even look like a Mercer."
Then she had picked up my six-week-old son and dropped him onto the middle of the comforter.
It had not been a hard surface.
She would later repeat that to anyone willing to listen.
It was a bed.
He was fine.
She had not hurt him.
But a newborn does not understand the difference between being dropped onto a bed and being dropped onto concrete.
He had screamed.
Something inside me changed at that sound.
I crawled past both of them, lifted Noah against my chest, ran into the bathroom, and locked the door.
Now Marlene stood inches away on the other side.
I did not argue about who Noah looked like.
I was finished defending my pregnancy.
Finished pointing out Grant's chin in our son's face.
Finished explaining that newborn eye color could change.
Finished listening to Marlene compare Noah to photographs of Grant as a baby.
I asked one question.
"What exactly did you mail?"
Grant stopped pacing.
Silence.
"A paternity kit," he finally said. "Mom ordered it."
My grip tightened around Noah.
"What sample did she use?"
Neither of them answered.
"Grant."
He exhaled.
"She swabbed his cheek three mornings ago while you were in the shower."
My body went cold.
"I was twenty feet away."
"I know."
"You were there?"
He waited too long.
"I found out after she'd done it."
"Did you stop her?"
"Elise, can we not do this through a locked door?"
"What did she put in my baby's mouth?"
Marlene answered.
"A sterile swab. Stop being dramatic."
My free hand went automatically to my pocket.
My phone was still there.
I pulled it out.
Opened the recorder.
Pressed the red button.
"You took a sample from my child without telling me."
Marlene laughed once.
"I needed the truth."
Grant said, "Mom, stop."
"No," I said. "Let her talk."
And she did.
She said I had become oversensitive after giving birth.
She said Grant had a right to certainty.
She said no reasonable wife would object to a paternity test if she had nothing to hide.
She said the result would end the argument once and for all.
I looked at Noah's wet eyelashes.
"The argument is not the problem."
"Then open the door."
"No."
Grant moved closer.
"Elise, I didn't know she was actually going to mail it."
That sentence stayed with me.
Not because I believed him.
Because of the exact words he chose.
Actually going to mail it.
I stared at the recording bar.
"Then why did you drag me across the floor tonight?"
Grant said nothing.
Marlene did.
"Because you keep acting guilty."
My throat tightened.
I wanted to scream at her.
Instead I became strangely calm.
"I am not opening this door while you're standing there."
Grant sighed.
"Fine."
"If you want to talk to me, move away from the handle. Make your mother do the same."
"Mom, back up."
Marlene snapped, "Do not let her order you around in your own house."
"Mom."
"She is controlling you."
"Back up."
His voice was louder that time.
For one brief second, I thought he might finally understand how dangerous the situation had become.
Then Marlene shoved past him.
Her hand closed around the bathroom knob.
She twisted it hard.
Noah startled against me.
"Open this door."
I said nothing.
The knob shook again.
Then Marlene threw her shoulder against the door.
Once.
Twice.
Grant said, "What are you doing?"
"Getting my grandson away from her before she runs."
I pulled up the emergency call screen.
The door shook a third time.
This time the frame made a cracking sound.
I pressed call.
The dispatcher answered.
"911. What is your emergency?"
Everything outside the door went silent.
I kept my eyes on the knob.
"My husband assaulted me," I said. "His mother handled my newborn violently, and they're trying to break into the bathroom where I'm locked with my baby."
Grant whispered, "Elise."
Marlene said, "You have got to be kidding me."
The dispatcher asked for the address.
I gave it.
Grant knocked once, softer now.
"Tell them nobody is breaking anything."
The dispatcher heard him.
"Ma'am, is that your husband?"
"Yes."
"Stay behind the locked door."
Marlene's voice changed immediately.
Sweet.
Controlled.
"Elise, honey, nobody wants to hurt you."
I almost laughed.
The transformation was so fast it frightened me more than the shouting.
The dispatcher told me officers were on the way.
Grant began pleading.
"Do you understand what calling the police will do?"
That sentence told me everything.
Not what happened to you.
Not is the baby okay.
What calling the police will do.
I looked at Noah.
His crying had softened to small hiccups.
"I understand exactly what tonight did."
Five minutes later, red and blue light swept across the bathroom window.
Marlene stepped away from the door.
Grant whispered something I could not hear.
Then the bedroom went strangely quiet.
A heavy knock sounded downstairs.
"Police."
Grant started walking.
Before he left, he stopped outside the bathroom.
"Elise, don't exaggerate this."
I looked at the recording timer.
Eleven minutes and thirty-seven seconds.
I saved the file.
Then I emailed it to myself.
May you like
And to my sister.
I did not know yet that those eleven minutes would become the first crack in a story Grant and Marlene had been building for weeks.
