“Who did this to you?”
My hand gripped the cold metal bed rail until my knuckles turned white. The fluorescent lights of the hospital room hummed with a low, headache-inducing frequency, and the smell of antiseptic burned sharp in my nostrils. I stared at my daughter, and the blood in my veins, usually warm and steady, turned to absolute ice.
Clara was a mask of ruin. Her left eye was swollen shut, a grotesque landscape of purple and black. Her arm was encased in plaster, and dark, finger-shaped bruises bloomed like toxic flowers around her neck. She had been silent when I walked in, staring at the ceiling with the thousand-yard stare I had seen on young soldiers in Kandahar.
But when I spoke, she broke.
“Mom.” Her voice was a dry crackle. “It was Dustin. He lost at poker. Again. His mother and sister… they held me down while he…”
She couldn’t finish. She didn’t have to.
