The Bruises

I was supposed to be in Denver until Friday.

Instead, a canceled meeting sent me home two days early.

I heard Nora before I even reached the kitchen.

"You're lying!"

Then her small voice cracked. "You hurt me every day!"

I stopped in the hallway.

Denise stood by the counter, wearing the same calm expression everyone always praised her for.

"Nora," she said gently, "stop making up stories."

My daughter flinched.

"She isn't making anything up," I said.

Denise froze. "Marcus? You're home already?"

I went straight to Nora. She grabbed my sleeve and ducked behind me. That scared me more than anything Denise could have said.

"What happened to your arm?"

"Nothing," Denise answered before Nora could open her mouth.

I pushed back my daughter's pajama sleeve. Dark marks circled her small arm.

Denise stepped closer. "She bruises easily."

"Don't." Something in my voice made her stop where she stood.

For weeks Nora had changed the moment Denise walked into a room. She stopped talking. She stopped begging me not to travel. She'd even started locking her bedroom door at night.

I'd told myself there had to be another explanation.

Denise's eyes welled up. "You know how hard this has been for her since her mother died."

Nora looked straight at me. "My mommy didn't die."

Denise's tears stopped instantly.

I looked down at my daughter. "What did you say?"

Nora pointed at Denise. "She told me Mommy is alive."

Denise went white.

I reached into my coat and set an old photograph on the counter. "I already knew about the bruises," I said.

Denise stared down at the picture. I flipped it over — a handwritten address scrawled on the back.

"I also know you visited Nora's mother three weeks before we were all told she died."

Denise grabbed the edge of the counter to steady herself. "That's not possible."

"No," I said. "What's not possible is what the investigator found yesterday."

Nora squeezed my hand. Denise whispered, "Marcus, please."

I finally made myself look straight at her. "He found my first wife. Alive."

The glass slipped out of Denise's hand.

But before it hit the floor, Nora whispered something that made me forget how to breathe.

"She comes here when you're gone."