Page 73 of I Am Salvation

“Was there any blood on the sheets?”

“Not that time, no.”

“So the first time, whoever came in cut Griffin on the face and the abdomen, correct?”

“Yes.” Her lip trembles. “That beautiful face of hers had a scar.”

“But the next time, she wasn’t cut?”

She shrugs. “We didn’t find any blood. Neither did the forensic investigators.” Her face darkens. “But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t cut.”

I nod. “That’s true enough. What did you do then?”

“We called the police. And they interrogated us, as if we were the criminals.”

“Did you tell them that you had another child?”

“They found out. They used it as an excuse to bludgeon us with questions. If we got rid of one child, why wouldn’t we get rid of another?”

“I see.”

I keep my fists from clenching. Dealing with this woman is more difficult than I anticipated. She’s distant. But I can understand that.

But the way she speaks about how the police officers treated her… Of course they had questions about what happened to Dragon.

“Did you call the police the first time Griffin was attacked?”

“No.”

“Because you assumed Dragon had done it.”

She blinks. “Yes.”

“What did you do that time?”

“We took Griffin to the hospital, of course, and the people at the ER wanted to call the police. We wouldn’t allow it. We said our son was responsible.”

“And where was Dragon when you took Griffin to the hospital?”

“I don’t know,” she scoffs. “How am I supposed to remember all of this? It was over twenty years ago.”

I shake my head. How can this woman not remember the day her child was attacked? How can she not remember what she did with her other child?

“Did you leave Dragon at home alone?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Maybe one of you stayed home with Dragon while the other took Griffin to the ER?”

She presses her lips together. “No. We both went to the ER.”

“And no one asked you where your other child was?”

“We had to sit and talk to a social worker. The hospital insisted on that if we weren’t going to call the police.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“Her. It was a woman. We told her what happened. That Dragon had gotten a knife from the kitchen and had attacked his sister. She’s the one who suggested Dragon be removed from the home.”

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