Читать книгу Lie To Me: a gripping thriller with a shocking twist! - J.T. Ellison, J.T. Ellison - Страница 19

SIDS, OR NOT TO SIDS

Then

The baby wasn’t breathing. He was cold and blue, and Sutton was standing over the crib with a look of shock on her face. Her voice was high and reedy, bordering on complete hysteria. She was slapping at her head.

“Do something! For God’s sake, Ethan, do something!”

What was he supposed to do? The baby was clearly dead. He’d seen enough dead things to know. The numbness spread through him, burning and cauterizing as it went. This is your son, not some...thing in a backyard, on the side of the road, or in a coffin. This is your son. Feel something.

Shock, you’re in shock.

Sutton had gone over the edge, was keening. She started to reach into the crib to pick up the baby—Dashiell, his name is Dashiell—but Ethan grabbed her arm. “Stop. Call 9-1-1. Don’t touch him.”

She lost all affect, the hysteria fleeing. Her calm was eerie, unsettling. It was as if his touch had switched off a light inside her; one flick of the switch and the wife he knew was gone. Her voice was hollow, girlish. “He’s my baby. I want to pick him up. I want to hold him.”

“Sutton, we need the police to see that you didn’t do anything to him.”

She turned, eyes wide, and slapped him, hard across the cheek. The fire returned to her eyes. “How dare you? How dare you? I didn’t hurt him, you know I didn’t. I’d never hurt him. How could you possibly insinuate that I killed our baby? You bastard!”

He grabbed her by the arms, squeezed hard, as if he could keep the demons from spilling out. “Sutton, listen to me. They’ll look at you. They always look at the mother. And now that you know... Calm down. Please, darling, just calm down.”

She ripped herself from his grip and rushed out of the room. He heard her crying, cursing, begging, the words running together, a wailing crescendo: No, no, no, no, no.

He stared once more at the still body of their tiny son. Oh, Sutton. What have you done?

He had to call the police.

Time passed in a blur. Strangers came. Neighbors lined the streets. Rain started, chasing all but the nosiest inside to watch through their windows.

Ten hours—a lifetime—later, they carried Dashiell’s body from the house. When the door closed behind them, it felt so empty. He didn’t know how to feel. Sutton had been given a sedative and was passed out cold in their bed. He wanted a sedative. Why did he have to be the brave one, the together one, the strong one? Because he was a man? He’d lost his son, too. And probably more. His marriage, his wife. His life, so strategically built.

He opened a bottle of Scotch, poured half a glass, drank it down without breathing. The liquor burned, and he swallowed hard to keep it down.

Two drinks later, he’d finally admitted to himself this could have been his fault. He shouldn’t have told her. It was a stupid thing to do. But the guilt of it was weighing on him. Holding the secret inside, letting it eat at him, tear away at him, had become a permanent Charybdis churning in his soul.

Sutton loved Dashiell. Carried him with her everywhere. He’d outgrown the withy basket she kept by her desk and spent his out-of-arms time in a car seat stationed within five feet of her at all times. Ethan had finally won the battle to let the tyke sleep in his crib in his nursery instead of in their bed. It had been hard for Sutton, even harder for him. It was impossible to sleep well knowing Sutton was getting up to check on the baby every hour.

He’d told her because he knew she’d gotten used to it. To being a mother. To having a child. To being a family.

He knew she loved Dashiell.

But when he admitted what he’d done, it was like something inside her snapped.