Mary perched on the edge of the rocking chair, her small legs swinging back and forth, not touching the floor. She stared down at her own hands, twisting them in her lap. “We… we try to be good, Daddy,” she whispered. “We try really, really hard.”
“What do you mean, ‘try to be good’?” Marcus asked, pausing his clumsy attempt at the snaps on James’s clothes.
Mary’s voice became even smaller, barely audible. “We have to be very quiet. All the time. And we’re not allowed to make any messes. And we can’t ask for food, even if we’re hungry, unless it’s the right time.”
Marcus froze, his hands still on his son’s shirt. “What happens if you get hungry between those times?”
“Veronica says… she says we’re being greedy,” Mary whispered. “She says we should just be thankful for whatever we get.”
Marcus felt a tightness in his chest that made it hard to breathe. “And what do you get to eat, sweetheart?”
“Sometimes it’s just bread. Or just water.” Mary finally looked up, her big, sad eyes meeting his. “Daddy, are we bad children? Veronica always says we’re ungrateful because we don’t appreciate how hard she works for us.”
Marcus dropped to his knees in front of his daughter, taking her small hands into his own. They felt frail and cold. “No, baby girl. No. You are not bad children. You are good, and sweet, and wonderful. And you should never, ever have to be hungry.”
That was when Mary started to cry, but it was a different kind of crying than before. This wasn’t the sound of fear; it was a sound of release, as if she had been holding back a dam of sadness for months and it finally broke.
Marcus pulled both of his children into a tight embrace. James, surprisingly, had quieted and was now just looking up at his father with wide, curious eyes, as if trying to memorize the face of this man who was suddenly here.
“I’m sorry,” Marcus whispered into their hair, his own voice thick. “I’m so, so sorry I wasn’t here. I wasn’t here to protect you.”
After he got Mary into a clean dress and made sure James had a full bottle of milk, Marcus went downstairs to find Mrs. Deborah. She was waiting for him in the small study off the kitchen, the same room where she and Sarah used to sit and plan the week’s meals.
“Mrs. Deborah,” Marcus said, closing the door quietly behind him. “Please. Tell me everything.”
The kind old woman looked at Marcus, and her own eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Mr. Johnson. I should have called you. I should have found a way to let you know what was happening. But she threatened me.”
“She threatened you, too?” Marcus asked, his stomach clenching.
“Every day,” Mrs. Deborah nodded, her voice breaking. “But that’s not what’s important. It’s the children… oh, Mr. Johnson, the things she does to those poor babies when you’re gone.”
“Tell me,” Marcus said, though every part of him dreaded hearing it.
“She locks them in their rooms for hours at a time. Sometimes, it’s the whole day. She’ll give them one small meal and tell them it’s to ‘teach them gratitude.’ Last week, little Mary spilled a cup of juice, and… and Veronica made her clean the entire kitchen floor, on her hands and knees, with just one tiny rag. It took her hours, Mr. Johnson. Her poor knees were raw by the end.”
Marcus felt a wave of nausea.
Mrs. Deborah pressed on. “And baby James… she hardly feeds him. She says he cries too much and that he needs to learn to be quiet. I hear him crying and crying for hours, but she won’t let me go to him.”
“Why didn’t you call someone? The police? Why didn’t you call me?” Marcus demanded, though he already felt the answer.
“I tried to call you, sir, about two weeks ago,” Mrs. Deborah said, her face pale with the memory. “But she caught me. She grabbed my phone and told me if I ever tried again, she would tell you I was stealing from the house. She said… she said no one would ever believe an old housekeeper over the word of a rich man’s beautiful new wife.”
Marcus finally understood the depth of Veronica’s manipulation. She had isolated everyone. She had made the children and Mrs. Deborah too terrified to speak.
“There’s more, Mr. Johnson,” Mrs. Deborah said, her hand going to the pocket of her apron. She pulled out her phone. “I knew I had to do something, even if she fired me. I started… I started taking pictures.”
She showed the screen to Marcus. He saw photos of Mary’s bruised and scraped knees. Photos of James, looking impossibly small and thin in his crib, with the red marks on his arms clearly visible. He even saw a photo of Mary’s bedroom door, with a chair wedged under the knob from the outside.
Marcus’s hands were shaking as he stared at the images. This was it. This was the proof.
“Mrs. Deborah,” Marcus said, his voice thick with an emotion he couldn’t name. “You were incredibly brave to do this. You may have just saved my children.”
“What are we going to do, sir?” she asked, her eyes searching his.
Marcus was quiet for a long moment, the gears in his mind, so used to solving complex business problems, now turning to face the most important challenge of his life. “I’m going to call my friend, Richard Thomas. He’s a lawyer. A very good one. We are going to make sure Veronica can never, ever come near Mary and James again.”
“But Mr. Johnson, she’ll fight you. She’ll lie. She’ll try to make you look like the bad one.”
Marcus nodded slowly. “I know she will. But I have something she doesn’t.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“The truth,” Marcus said. “And I have people who truly care about these children. People like you, who were brave enough to get evidence, even when you were scared.”
Just then, they heard Veronica’s voice, sickly sweet, calling from the kitchen. “Marcus? Darling? I’ve made some tea for us. Why don’t you come and relax?”
Marcus and Mrs. Deborah looked at each other. Veronica still had no idea that her entire world was about to come crashing down. She still thought she was in control.
“Mrs. Deborah,” Marcus said, his voice low and firm. “Tonight, I want you to take the children into your room. Lock the door. Keep them with you and keep them safe. Tomorrow morning, I’m calling Richard, and this fight begins.”
Mrs. Deborah nodded, her face set with determination. “I’ll keep them safe, Mr. Johnson. I promise.”
Marcus took a deep breath. The absent, grieving husband was gone. The work-obsessed, distracted man had vanished. He was a father. He had finally woken up. And he was ready to go to war for his children.
Marcus had made his decision. Now, the true battle was about to start…
