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for her help that caused her to stumble from the bathroom.
    She raced down the stairs, crashing into the kitchen. Tyler had Teagan on their marble island, his lips pressed over her nose and mouth. Teagan’s head was as blue as the blueberries they’d had for breakfast.
    The next several hours blurred in Morgan’s mind like the remnants of a nightmare. The arrival of the ambulance. Her stammering through the story of how her daughter had been perfectly fine until Tyler came home.
    EMS had placed a breathing tube. They’d gone emergent to Sacred Heart.
    The CT scan of her head showed the devastation. Multiple bleeds. New and old subdural hematomas. Massive cerebral edema. Rib fractures. Retinal hemorrhages.
    And her coworkers looked at her like a pedophile on a playground.
    She knew the mantra that played through their mind. She’d taught it to some of them herself.
    Whoever was last seen with the baby—hurt the baby.
    That was her. It was Tyler.
    Then the horror of every parent. The police interview in the midst of knowing that her daughter had been declared brain dead by one of her attending physicians. The conversation played through her mind like an unrelenting accusation of her failure to act.
    â€œMorgan, I know you’ve been under a lot of stress,” Dr. Marshall had said. “You’re trying to work while being on dialysis. There’s the added stress of having a new baby. These things are far from easy. We can only help you and Tyler get through this if you tell us exactly what happened.”
    Her voice weak and thin because she’d screamed so many times. She looked at him squarely. “I did not shake Teagan. I would never hurt her!”
    And then Victoria had shown up with flowers for her baby. Pink gerbera daisies had been Morgan’s favorite until that day. Until she saw them proffered up like a thinly veiled plea for forgiveness.
    And that’s when it had all fallen apart.
    All the drama of a telenovela and more.
    In the end, Victoria confessed she was the one who’d shaken Teagan. That she’d done it more than once, to quiet her crying. That was the last time Morgan ever saw her—leaving the PICU in handcuffs.

    The sound of Tyler’s footfalls on the steps brought her back to the present, to this moment, but the pain she felt was just as strong as it had been one month ago.
    Morgan lay on her side, looking out at the city lights that lay in the valley below their home. She used to sway Teagan in her arms at the view. Tyler crossed over the carpet, teased her blond hair back, and placed warm lips on her forehead. Only after, he laid the flowers he’d originally bought for Teagan’s grave on her dresser. Pink roses, limp, with brown, curled edges.
    She wanted to throw them in the trash.
    Tyler set his wine glass down in the armoire that held their television and turned on the news. He always hummed nursery rhymes he’d sung to Teagan as he got ready for bed.
    â€œLooks like both of us had interesting ends to our day.”
    She remained silent. The thought crossed her mind to feign sleep to avoid conversation altogether.
    â€œHon?”
    Her eyes drew to the TV. Even the national news had picked up Zoe’s story. A child’s murder halted by the curious innocence of Boy Scouts waslike chum in the water for sharks. Their own lawn still hadn’t recovered after the media had parked on their grass. Even better than a stranger taking the life of a child was the story of a pediatric ICU nurse and her transplant surgeon husband beating their own daughter to death.
    Presumed guilty before proven innocent.
    â€œYou heard about Zoe Martin’s case?” Morgan asked.
    He turned around and clicked off the light. “Hard not to. Everyone’s talking about it. How is she?”
    â€œYou’re asking as a potential harvester of her organs?”
    Sadness flashed in his blue eyes.
    Why am I picking a fight, today of all