Then Mark looks up, and the expression on his face is not guilt. It is annoyance. As if I am interrupting something important. As if I am the problem in the room.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” he asks.
I don’t answer.
I rush to Emma, wrap her in a towel, and pull her behind me. My hands are shaking so badly I nearly drop my phone, but not badly enough to stop me from calling 911. Mark stands too fast, water and soap splashing across the tile, and starts talking the way liars always do when they believe confidence can erase facts.
“She slipped,” he says. “You’re overreacting. She fell earlier. I was cleaning her up.”
But now I am close enough to see more.
Not one bruise. Several. Fading yellow under newer purple. A thin red line near her shoulder. Fear all over my daughter’s face so clearly it makes me sick that I ever let myself miss it. Emma clings to my waist and buries her face in me like she has been waiting for this exact rescue for longer than I can bear to imagine.
When Mark hears me giving the dispatcher my address, his whole body changes.