The officer did not end the call.
He kept listening while my mother-in-law continued talking as if the only emergency was what her son might face next.
She repeated that I had exaggerated the injuries. She said my husband had only been frustrated. She insisted that I should come home, keep quiet, and stop making the family look bad.
The officer motioned for me to stay silent.
I understood why.
Until that moment, my husband could claim that I had misunderstood what happened. His mother could claim she had misunderstood it too. But now, with an officer listening, she was explaining exactly how she saw the situation—and she was doing it without asking whether my newborn was safe.
She was defending her son.
The nurse returned and checked the baby again. I watched her examine the bruises and injuries, then write something into the chart. My hands were still shaking, but for the first time since the attack began, I wasn’t alone in the room.
