The Boyfriend

I am the mother and the girlfriend. The negligent mother. Yes, that one. the stupid woman, the bitch, the idiot, the whore, the despised.

He is the boyfriend. It’s always the boyfriend. He is the one everybody would have killed had they been in my position. He is the one they hate, but I am the one they blame.

Why didn’t I know it’s always the boyfriend? Was I blinded by a badge? His vow to protect and serve the public?

I left my son alone with the boyfriend.

I left my son alone with the one who is supposed to protect the sheep. I left my son alone with a wolf.

I didn’t know.

I came home from running errands and the boyfriend didn’t want me to check on my sleeping son. “He’s still sleeping” the wolf cried. He couldn’t stop me from climbing the stairs to assure myself of the gentle rise and fall of his chest in sleep.

He was snoring, a deep terrible sound I had never heard, that sound, it still tears my soul.

My son wouldn’t wake up.

My son was hurt.

I panicked.

In my muddled brain I thought I could get him to the hospital faster if I drove him.

I took him to the ER and they took him away from me.

I was taken to a room.

My parents came,

The police came.

The detectives came.

They would not let me see my son.

My mom cried and withered before my eyes. My dad became an old man in a few short minutes.

My sisters, still in high school, were pulled out of class. That night they started sleeping in the same bed again, for the first time since preschool. The girls curled into each other as they did in my mother’s womb.

My brother was broken by the need to kill, to avenge, split with feelings too harsh to bear, they lined his face and show still.

In that small cramped room, when I was told I could not see my son, I became animalistic, primal, ferocious. My vision blackened, I ripped them open with my screams. They heard me in the waiting room, they heard me on the street. Had I been an animal, a lioness, I would have ripped out their throats to see my son, my baby, my heaven and reason.

They relented.

My son was intubated, his tiny body was so still. IVs I didn’t understand, tubes confused me, running into and out of his body. They let me hold his hand shortly and pulled me away.

The helicopter pilot came in as cold, calculating eyes kept watch, judging the authenticity of my grief. The pilot told me, “we are going to get your son to the hospital as quickly as possible”, and he smiled kindly. He did not say it would be ok, but he was my light in that hell. He gave me hope, and forever when I see a life flight, my heart bursts and I wish, I pray, I beg…please don’t let it be a child.

They flew my son to a hospital that had a pediatric intensive care unit.

My son was closely monitored, the intracranial pressure in his skull was increased. Blood had pooled behind his eyes. His brain bled. He lost the use of his entire left side. My son had a stroke while in a coma.

Someone had hit him in the head. Someone shook my baby. Exactly two months shy of his second birthday, on a beautiful October day, my son was assaulted.

Only one person was with him.

The boyfriend. The cop. The betrayer, the sociopath. The child abuser.

The detectives said they knew I was not the one who hurt my child.

My God, to be considered, even for a moment, that I would hurt my son.

They knew it was the boyfriend, it always is. Do you know? Because I didn’t.

My son, he’s a fighter, he loves life, my son came back to me. The left side of his face drooped, his words were gone, his left hand wouldn’t move and he didn’t know why, but he came back to me. He worked hard in occupational and speech therapy. He quickly relearned how to crawl, he stood again, he walked again.

That boyfriend, that bastard, he couldn’t be convicted. Not enough evidence the prosecutor claimed. A trial would only reopen old wounds and he would not be found guilty. Maximum sentence, best case scenario? 7 years in prison.

Fuck you. It’s because it would look bad for the county. Small town politics.

“Can he be a cop again?”

“Most likely they’ll know there’s no smoke without fire.”

“If you were my daughter I would tell you this: he cannot be convicted on circumstantial evidence, and it will only be harder on your son and your family.”

“Maybe we could have gotten a conviction if your son had died.”

I left.

I left that town, I left those people, but my grief will always follow me.

There is a boyfriend out there. He is charming, until he is violent. He is a wolf in costume. Maybe he is pulling people over, maybe he is dead. I don’t know. I’m sorry.

I am the mother who should have known better. No one would have left their child with the boyfriend.

If only I had known.

I am haunted.

Most importantly, I am the mother of a third grade boy, who can’t play contact sports but can run faster than a sea breeze.

He is perfect. He is my son. He is a survivor of shaken baby syndrome. He is a fighter. He is kindness, happiness, and love. He is hope. He writes stories and dreams big dreams. He wants to be an inventor. He is amazingly unaffected by the abuse he suffered at the hands of a predator.

I dream Crimson violence.

I bide my time.