Chapter 4 - The House Calls
By noon, Laura was back at St. Luke’s Hospital, sitting beside Sophie’s bed.
The little girl was eating a bowl of vanilla pudding, propped up against a stack of fluffy white pillows. The purple bruise on her cheekbone was vivid against her pale skin, but her dark eyes were bright, filled with the resilient curiosity of a seven-year-old.
"Mom?" Sophie asked, swallowing her spoonful of pudding. "Are we going back to our house?"
Laura reached out, gently smoothing back Sophie’s tangled brown curls. "We are, baby. But it’s going to be different. It’s going to be just you and me. No fighting, no loud noises, and no one ever, ever making you feel unsafe in your own home again. Do you understand?"
Sophie nodded slowly, a small, relieved smile touching her lips. "Will Daddy live somewhere else?"
"Yes," Laura said, keeping her voice calm and firm. "Daddy made very bad choices, and he is not going to live with us anymore."
The hospital room door clicked open.
Laura looked up, expecting the pediatrician or a nurse. Instead, her mother, Helen, stood in the doorway. Helen had driven down from Boulder the moment she received Laura’s early morning phone call. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face etched with a mixture of profound grief and incandescent anger.
"Oh, my precious girl," Helen gasped, rushing across the room to wrap her arms around Sophie first, pressing soft kisses into her hair. Then, she turned to Laura, pulling her into a fierce, suffocating embrace. "I heard everything from Marcus. That miserable excuse for a man... and your sister... Laura, I am so sorry. I failed you both as a mother—"
"You didn't fail me, Mom," Laura whispered into her mother’s shoulder, holding on tightly for the first time since the phone call in the supply room nearly fourteen hours ago. "Nobody knew what Daniel was hiding behind his suits. But we know now. And we're cutting it out."
Helen pulled back, wiping a tear from her cheek. Her posture straightened, adopting the fierce matriarchal pride that ran deep in their family. "What do you need me to do? Pack their things? Change the locks?"
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"The locks were changed at 8:00 a.m. by a locksmith Marcus sent," Laura replied calmly. "Their clothes and personal effects are currently packed in garbage bags sitting on the front lawn."
Helen stared at her daughter for a second, then let out a sharp, genuine laugh of disbelief and triumph. "You truly are your father's daughter, Captain Mercer."
