Chapter 1 - The Boy on the Steps
The screwdriver slipped from Peter Calder’s hand and clanged across the porch just as he heard the scraping.
At first he thought it was a dog in the alley behind his duplex in Grove City, south of Columbus. Then he turned and saw Drew dragging himself up the front walk with both hands, one thin leg trailing stiffly behind him. Lily, all of three, clung to the back of her brother’s filthy dinosaur shirt with both fists.
Peter was down the steps before Drew’s arms gave out.
“Drew—Jesus—what happened?”
Drew lifted a gray, sweat-shiny face. His mouth barely moved. “She locked us downstairs again.”
Again. The word hit harder than the sight of the splint made from a yardstick and duct tape.
Peter scooped Lily up first because she looked weightless. Then he slid an arm under Drew and carried him inside. Lily tore into the crackers Peter handed her so fast she started coughing. Drew, half-conscious, still reached over to pat her back.
“Slow, Lily,” he whispered. “Slow.”
Peter knelt in front of him and pulled out his phone. “I’m calling 911.”
Drew’s eyes sharpened with fear. “She’ll be mad.”
“She is not touching you again.”
The operator kept him talking until sirens arrived. At Mount Carmel, Lily was put on fluids. Drew went to X-ray. A social worker asked quiet questions Peter wished never had to be asked of a child.
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An hour later, the ER doctor stepped into the waiting room holding Drew’s chart. His voice stayed level, but his face did not.
“Mr. Calder,” he said, “this fracture is several days old. And it isn’t the only injury that’s healing.”
