My four-year-old son called me at work, crying: “Dad, Mom’s boyfriend hit me with a baseball bat.”
I was 20 minutes away… so I called the only person who could get there faster.
My phone had buzzed twice against the conference-room table.
The room smelled like old coffee and dry marker ink, and I was trying to keep my eyes on a budget slide when I finally answered.
“Hey, buddy.
You okay?”
For a second, all I heard was Noah breathing.
Broken.
Wet.
Scared.
Then my four-year-old whispered, “Dad… please come home.”
I pushed my chair back.
“Where’s Mom?”
“She’s not here,” he said.
“Mom’s boyfriend… Travis… hit me with a baseball bat.
My arm hurts really bad.
He said if I cry, he’ll hit me again.”
Then a grown man’s voice exploded behind him.
“Who are you talking to?
Give me the phone!”
The line went dead.
The conference room froze around me.
A woman from accounting stopped with her paper coffee cup halfway to her mouth.
Pens hovered above legal pads.
The air conditioner clicked while everyone stared at me.
“My son has been attacked,” I said.
“I’m leaving.”
By the time I reached the hallway, my hands were shaking so hard I nearly dropped my keys.
It was 2:14 PM on a Tuesday.
My call log showed Noah’s calls and thirty-one seconds of audio that would later matter to police.
But I wasn’t thinking about evidence.
I was thinking about distance.
Twenty minutes.
Downtown traffic.
Red lights.
And my four-year-old alone in my house with the man who had just threatened to hit him again.
I couldn’t get there fast enough.
Someone else could.
My older brother, Derek.
Derek had been there since the day we brought Noah home wrapped in a blue hospital blanket.
He taught him to fist-bump.
He fixed his little bike after Noah bent a training wheel.
Once, during a fever, Derek stayed beside Noah’s bed all night.
