Chapter 1 - SEVEN BLOCKS ON ONE GOOD LEG
I was replacing a warped board on my front porch when I heard something scraping along the sidewalk.
Not footsteps.
Dragging.
I looked over the railing and dropped the drill.
My six-year-old nephew, Drew, was pulling himself toward my house with both hands.
His right leg trailed behind him at an unnatural angle.
Beside him stumbled his three-year-old sister, Lily, barefoot except for one filthy sock, her pink dress dark with rain and mud.
They lived seven blocks away.
“Drew!”
I reached them just as his arms gave out.
He collapsed against my chest.
His face was gray.
“Uncle Dan,” he whispered.
“What happened?”
He looked at Lily first.
Not himself.
“She was hungry.”
I lifted him.
Pain twisted his face so violently that I nearly dropped to my knees with him.
“What happened to your leg?”
He grabbed my shirt.
“She locked us downstairs again.”
Again.
One word.
That was the moment the morning changed.
I carried both children inside my house in Westerville, Ohio.
Lily spotted crackers on the kitchen counter.
She tore open the package with both hands and began stuffing them into her mouth so quickly she started coughing.
Drew, shaking from pain, reached across the chair.
“Slow down, Lil.”
He rubbed her back.
“You'll get a tummy ache.”
He was six years old.
And he sounded like a tired parent.
I took out my phone.
“I'm calling an ambulance.”
Drew's reaction was immediate.
“No!”
His eyes widened.
“She'll find us.”
“Who?”
He stopped.
That frightened me more than if he'd answered.
My younger brother Aaron had died three years earlier after a highway accident.
His widow, Rachel, gradually cut me out of the children's lives afterward.
Every visit request had an explanation.
Drew was sick.
Lily was sleeping.
The kids were grieving.
Seeing me reminded them of Aaron.
I believed her.
I told myself pushing would be selfish.
Now Drew had dragged an injured leg seven blocks because apparently my house was the only place he knew to run.
The ambulance arrived twelve minutes later.
At Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Lily received fluids while Drew was taken for imaging.
My wife, Sarah, arrived carrying a stuffed bear.
She rushed toward me.
“Oh my God. Daniel, what happened?”
Before I could answer, Drew saw her from the hospital bed.
His whole body went rigid.
Sarah stopped.
For one second, I thought he was simply overwhelmed.
Then he pulled the blanket to his chin.
“Don't let her take us.”
I looked from my nephew to my wife.
Sarah's face changed.
Only slightly.
But enough that I noticed.
Before I could ask what he meant, the orthopedic doctor entered carrying Drew's scans.
“The good news is we can treat this.”
I stood.
“And the bad news?”
He looked at me carefully.
“Mr. Foster, your nephew didn't injure his leg escaping this morning.”
My stomach tightened.
“What do you mean?”
“This fracture is several days old.”
I stared through the glass toward Lily.
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Drew hadn't crawled seven blocks after breaking his leg.
He had started the journey already broken.
