Lena’s breath hitched.
She’d seen those marks before. Faint, at first. She’d asked Ellie once, brushing her fingers over a thin red line on her forearm. “Did you fall at school, baby?”
Ellie had flinched. “No, Mama. I bumped the door.”
Lena had believed her. Because what mother doesn’t want to believe her child is safe? Especially when your husband—the man who held your hair back during your first trimester vomiting fits, who cried when he heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time—is the one watching her while you rest?
But Dr. Chen hadn’t let her leave without seeing the photos.
“Your daughter came in with you today?” he’d asked gently after the routine anatomy scan for baby number two. Lena had nodded, exhaustion pulling at her eyelids. “She’s with my sister while I get checked.”
