I called out, my voice trembling, trying not to shout, while still peering through the crack.
I didn’t say everything.
I just repeated my address and asked them to come immediately.
Mark didn’t hear me at first.
He kept talking to Sophie with practiced patience, like a man who believes his every gesture deserves trust, even when it already smells like a lie.
She was curled up in the bathtub, her knees drawn up to her chest.
She wasn’t crying.
That’s what broke my heart the most.
She looked like a child trained to obey.
When I pushed open the door, Mark turned his head slowly, not quite startled.
As if even then he still thought he could explain everything and continue to be in charge.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
He didn’t even sound furious.
He sounded annoyed, as if I had interrupted some random household chore, as if I were the intruder in that house.
I lifted Sophie out of the bath im without a thought for the spilled water or my soaked clothes.
I just grabbed a towel, wrapped donkey it around her, and held her close.
Mark jumped up.
He still had the paper cup in his hand.
I saw a white powder stuck to the wet rim, and the timer was still counting down the seconds on the sink.
“Don’t touch her,” I said.
My voice sounded so different from my own that even Sophie looked up at me as if another woman had just walked in.
He put down the glass.
He opened his hands in that gesture of his, the gesture of a reasonable man.
The gesture he used with neighbors, teachers, waiters, doctors, anyone who wanted to appear sensible.
“You’re confusing things.
It’s medicine.
The pediatrician said we could try long baths to help her relax and with the constipation.”
I wanted to believe it for half a second.
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