Chapter 1
The mother took the duplicate form from my hand and stared at the emergency-contact line.
Her son’s name was there, but the person listed to receive urgent calls was someone she had never heard of.
Behind us, the nursery still looked like the aftermath of a fight.
Gauze packets across the floor.
Bottles scattered into the hallway.
A thermometer trapped beneath the crib.
And red chili powder ground into the floor by our shoes.
She looked at the paper again.
Then she looked at the caregiver.
A few minutes earlier, I had walked into that nursery expecting nothing more than a routine newborn check.
I had done enough of those visits to know how ordinary they could be.
You checked the baby’s weight, breathing, feeding, skin, temperature, and the small details that mattered during those first exhausting weeks.
Parents asked questions.
Caregivers asked questions.
Sometimes everyone was tired.
Sometimes the baby cried through the entire examination.
This was different.
I had barely stepped through the nursery doorway when I noticed the other woman standing beside the crib.
She was not there to help with a normal examination.
She had one hand around the newborn’s tiny arm, holding it down against the mattress.
The live-in caregiver stood over the baby with a small container in her hand.
She was rubbing red chili powder onto the cuff around his wrist.
For a second, my brain tried to make the scene ordinary.
Maybe it was some substance I did not recognize.
Maybe the red powder had another explanation.
Maybe I had walked in halfway through something harmless.
Then the smell reached me.
Sharp.
Hot.
Unmistakably chili.
I saw the powder clinging to the cuff.
More of it had fallen onto the sheet and mattress beneath the baby’s wrist.
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The newborn’s fingers flexed against the fabric.
And the woman holding his arm tightened her grip just enough to keep him from pulling away.
