The Perfect Child(65)

Janie interrupted. “Daddy, play with me. I wanna play.”

“Not right now. I’m talking to your mom.”

She tugged on my arm. “But Daddy!”

I jerked it away. “Let go.” My voice was louder than I had intended.

She stumbled back as if I’d hit her, eyes wide.

Hannah motioned to her. “Talk to her first. We can talk later.”

“Let’s go to your room, Janie,” I said.

I shot Hannah a knowing look over my shoulder as we headed into Janie’s room. I didn’t close the door behind us so she could hear our conversation. I took a seat on Janie’s bed. “Janie, come sit next to me. We need to talk.”

“I don’t wanna talk. I wanna play.” She crossed her arms on her chest.

“No. We’re going to talk first, and then we can play.”

She begrudgingly took a seat next to me.

“You bit Mommy today, and it really hurt her. That was a bad thing to do.” I wore my most serious face. “I am very upset with you.”

“Sorry, Daddy.” She grabbed my hand and kissed the top of it. “Can we play now?”

I shook my head. “I want to know why you did that. Why would you do something like that?”

She shrugged, searching my face for an answer.

“Please, I’m trying to understand. How could you hurt your mommy?”

She crawled up on my lap and whispered in her sweet voice, “I like hurting people. Do you?”





CASE #5243

INTERVIEW:

PIPER GOLDSTEIN

Ron stopped me midsentence. “How did Hannah seem to you during those early days?”

This time there was nothing I could do to keep the red from burning my cheeks. I shrugged.

He leaned forward. “How was Hannah after the baby was born?”

I cleared my throat. “I told you before—I didn’t see much of them during that time period.”

“No, you made it sound like you were around when the abuse happened, but that’s not true, is it?” Luke peered at me from across the table.

I looked away; his gaze was too intense.

Ron rubbed his chin. “It’s true, isn’t it? You hadn’t seen them in months until you got called to investigate at the hospital.”

“I—”

He cut me off. “You weren’t there for months. You have no idea what happened in that house, do you?”

“I didn’t have to be in the house to know what happened. I knew them.”

“Answer the question. You don’t know what went on in that house for three months after Cole was born, do you?”

I didn’t want to say the words, but I had no choice. “I didn’t have any contact during that time period.” I hung my head.

“And anything could’ve happened. Anything.” Ron pounded the table. “You didn’t know anything was even wrong until you got the call to go to the hospital, did you?”

“I didn’t know there were any problems in the home.”

“And by then it was too late, wasn’t it, Ms. Goldstein?”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I burst into tears.





FORTY

HANNAH BAUER

I could only feed Cole with my right breast because my left one was in stitches. He was a voracious eater, and one breast didn’t suffice. I still got a letdown in my left breast, which meant it was constantly engorged and I had to find a way to express it. I couldn’t use the breast pump because of how it pulled on my stitches, so I had to sit and do it by hand.

It only took two days before blood and pus oozed from my nipples, and it felt like fire coming out of me whenever Cole latched. I gritted my teeth and held back the urge to scream each time. He cried when he was finished because he was still hungry. I refused to quit, though, because breast milk was too important for development. I rushed to see my doctor, hoping she could fix me.

“It’s probably time for you to stop breastfeeding,” she said after her examination. “You have a horrible infection in your left breast.”

I’d expected as much. “I’m not ready to stop. Can’t you just prescribe an antibiotic? I know there are ones that are safe for nursing.”

“I can, but it will only be a temporary fix. I’m fairly certain the infection will come back.”

“I want to at least give it a try.” I wasn’t willing to give up that easily. Not on something that was so important.

She looked irritated, but she wrote me a prescription anyway. “I highly doubt these will work, but give them a try.”



The pain grew worse every hour, so bad it kept me up all night. My left breast was swollen and engorged. The right one was supposed to be healthy, but by morning, it’d grown hard, painful lumps and was just as red as my left. I couldn’t touch them; even the skin brushing against my shirt sent white-hot pain searing through my body until I was nauseous. I sobbed as I filled Cole his first bottle of formula later that evening.

“I feel like such a failure as a mom,” I said through my tears.

“Just give it a few days,” Christopher said, rubbing my back in wide circles. “It will probably clear up soon, and you can go back to breastfeeding. Formula isn’t going to hurt him, and I promise, he’s not going to forget how to do it.”