Chapter 1 - THE SLAP
My sister slapped my six-month-old daughter at Christmas dinner.
And then she laughed.
For one terrible second, nobody moved.
Not my mother.
Not my father.
Not my uncle sitting three feet away with a fork frozen halfway to his mouth.
Nobody.
Except my husband.
The sound wasn't even that loud.
Just a quick, ugly smack against Emma's tiny cheek.
But Emma's reaction tore through the dining room.
Her eyes went wide.
Her little face crumpled.
Then she screamed.
Not the fussy cry she'd been making seconds before.
This was different.
This was fear.
Pure, shocked fear.
“What the hell did you just do?”
My voice came out so loudly that the Christmas music playing from the living room suddenly seemed ridiculous.
Lauren stared at me.
My older sister still had one hand raised.
She blinked once.
Then rolled her eyes.
“Oh, relax, Sarah.”
I pulled Emma out of her arms so fast that Lauren stumbled backward.
Emma buried her face against my chest, sobbing so hard that her little body shook.
“You hit my baby.”
“It was a tap.”
“You slapped her!”
“Because she wouldn't stop screaming.”
My knees felt weak.
“She is six months old!”
“And?”
The word hit me almost as hard as the slap had hit Emma.
I stared at her.
Lauren crossed her arms.
Her red Christmas dress shimmered under the chandelier. She looked irritated.
Not ashamed.
Not frightened.
Irritated.
“Babies learn,” she said. “You keep picking her up every time she cries, she's going to turn into a spoiled little brat.”
My mother whispered, “Lauren…”
Lauren looked at her.
“What?”
Mom immediately looked down.
That was when something inside me broke.
I looked around the table.
Dad stared at his plate.
Uncle Robert took a nervous drink of water.
My cousin Melissa wouldn't meet my eyes.
They had all seen it.
Every single one of them.
And they were doing what my family had always done when Lauren went too far.
Nothing.
“You all saw her,” I said.
Nobody answered.
“You saw her hit Emma.”
Dad cleared his throat.
“Sarah, maybe we shouldn't make this bigger than—”
His sentence died when a chair scraped across the hardwood floor.
Everyone turned.
James stood.
My husband had been sitting at the opposite end of the table.
Captain James Walker had returned from an eleven-month deployment only seventeen days earlier.
During those seventeen days, I'd watched him wake in the middle of the night and instinctively reach for me.
I'd watched him spend hours holding the daughter he'd missed almost half of her first year with.
I'd watched him cry the first night Emma fell asleep on his chest.
Now he wasn't crying.
He wasn't shouting either.
He looked at Lauren with a stillness that frightened me more than anger would have.
“Get out.”
Lauren laughed.
“What?”
“You struck my daughter.”
“Oh, please. Don't start acting like some military tough guy.”
James didn't move.
“Leave.”
“This isn't your house.”
“No,” he said. “But that's my child.”
Lauren looked around the table.
“Mom?”
My mother said nothing.
“Dad?”
My father shifted uncomfortably.
Lauren laughed again, but this time it sounded thinner.
“You people are insane. I barely touched her.”
James took one step toward her.
“You have thirty seconds to walk out that door.”
Lauren's face changed.
“So what happens after thirty seconds?”
James looked her directly in the eyes.
“I call the police and report exactly what I just watched you do.”
Silence.
Lauren's mouth fell open.
“You wouldn't.”
James reached into his pocket.
He took out his phone.
“Twenty-nine.”
“James,” my father said.
James didn't even look at him.
“Twenty-eight.”
Lauren stared at him.
Then at me.
Then at Emma.
And something cold appeared in her expression.
“Fine.”
She grabbed her purse.
But before she walked away, she leaned toward me.
Her voice dropped low enough that only I could hear.
“You think tonight is about a stupid slap?”
I froze.
Lauren smiled.
“You have no idea what Mom and Dad have been hiding from you.”
Then she turned and walked toward the front door.
May you like
And suddenly, Emma wasn't the only reason my hands were shaking.
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