PART 1

My son was asleep on a hospital bench with one shoe missing when I discovered my mother had left him there alone. I was still trembling from anesthesia, my stitches burning beneath my skin, when the nurse leaned close and whispered, “Mrs. Carter, we thought his grandmother was with him.”

The hallway seemed to tilt beneath me. Eli was only four. He was curled beneath my coat, his cheeks marked with dried tears, one tiny hand wrapped around a juice box someone had given him.

“Where is my mother?” I asked.

The nurse looked away. I called my mother with shaking fingers. She answered on the third ring, laughing at something in the background.

“Mom,” I said, my voice rough. “Where are you?”