My son and his wife asked me to watch their two-month-old baby while they went shopping. But no matter how I held him or tried to calm him, he kept crying uncontrollably. I immediately sensed something was wrong. When I lifted his clothes to check his diaper… I froze. There was something there… something unimaginable. My hands started shaking. I grabbed him and rushed straight to the hospital.

“Laura.”

The waiting room door opened, and Dr. Patel stepped inside with another printout in his hand.

“We’ve stabilized Noah,” he said. “He’s resting now.”

Relief washed over me so sharply it almost hurt. For one brief, selfish second I wanted to ignore everything else and cling only to that. He was resting. He was not dying. The world had not ended in the worst way available.

Then the doctor added, “There’s something else.”

And the fear came back just as hard.

“What?”

He handed me the printout.

“Look here.”

I stared at the scan image, willing myself to see what he saw.

At first it was just more gray.

Then I noticed the faint oval shadows ringing the bruise.

Not one handprint.

Not one clear grip.

Several small areas of pressure.

My own hands began shaking again.

“Those look like…”

“Finger marks,” Dr. Patel said.

“But…” I squinted closer. “They’re too small.”

He nodded slowly.

“That’s the troubling part. They don’t match the spacing I’d expect from an adult hand.”

My mind resisted it.

“What do you mean?”

He pointed at the image again.

“These marks are from smaller hands.”