Chapter 2 - The Red Room at Lafayette General
The silence in that closet was deafening. The only sound was the shallow, rattling breaths of my son sleeping curled up on my work jacket in the corner of the office floor. He hadn't wanted to go to his bedroom. He had looked at his own bed—the one with the rocket ship sheets I had bought him for his birthday—and backed away like it was a trap.
I slipped my old phone into my jeans pocket and bent down. “Finn,” I murmured, keeping my voice lower than a whisper. “Hey, little man. Wake up easy.”
His eyes flew open, wide and white-rimmed, his left arm immediately tucking against his stomach to protect it. When his vision focused on my face, the panic softened, but the tension didn't leave his shoulders.
“Pancakes?” he whispered cautiously.
“Not just yet, buddy,” I said, gently lifting him into my arms. He weighed nothing. His hip bones felt sharp against my forearm. “First, we’re going to take a little ride in the truck. You and me.”
“Is Dwight coming?”
“No,” I said, looking right into his green eyes. “Dwight is never coming with us anywhere ever again.”
I carried him out through the garage, stepping over an empty thirty-pack of beer cans Dwight had tossed beside my tool chest. I clicked Finn into the passenger seat of my F-250, draped my heavy duck-canvas jacket over his shivering frame, and eased the truck down the driveway in neutral before turning the key. The diesel engine purred to life with a low rumble that usually lulled him to sleep.
Fifteen minutes later, I carried him through the sliding automatic doors of the emergency room at Lafayette General Medical Center.
The triage nurse, an older woman with silvering hair pulled back into a tight bun and the name tag reading *Mrs. Evelyn, RN*, looked up with the tired, guarded gaze of someone who had worked the graveyard shift for twenty years.
“What do we have, sir?”
“My son,” I said. My voice was completely flat, the tone rig hands use when the blowout preventer gauge goes into the red and panic will only get men killed. “He has a burn on his left arm that needs immediate treatment.”
Evelyn leaned over the counter, her eyes dropping to the thick, overlapping layers of gray utility tape wrapped tightly around Finn’s small limb. Her expression hardened instantly.
“Did you put that on him?” she asked, her voice dropping an octave.
“I got home from the offshore rig three hours ago,” I answered, holding her gaze without blinking. “I found him standing over a hot stove like this. His mother’s houseguest put it on him. Or made him put it on himself.”
Evelyn hit a button beneath her desk. “Room 4. Right through those double doors, sweetheart. Dr. Landry is coming in right now.”
The treatment room smelled of harsh antiseptic, rubbing alcohol, and old floor wax. I set Finn on the paper-lined examination table. He stared down at his sneakers, his little sneakers scuffed and splitting at the seams, while his small fingers nervously plucked at the edges of the silver duct tape.
“Finn, don’t pick at it, buddy,” I said softly, catching his good hand. His skin was burning up. A fever was already setting in.
The door swung inward, and a tall, broad-shouldered doctor in blue scrubs walked in, followed by Evelyn and a younger woman carrying a clipboard.
“Morning, folks. I’m Dr. Landry,” the physician said, his southern drawl smooth and calm. He pulled on a pair of latex gloves with a sharp snap. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with here, young man.”
Landry approached Finn slowly, telegraphing every movement. He pulled a pair of medical trauma shears from his pocket. “Finn, I’m just going to cut the tape off, okay? I’m going to be as gentle as I can, but it’s going to pinch some. You hold your daddy’s hand.”
Finn gripped my right hand. His grip was surprisingly fierce, his little knuckles turning white.
Dr. Landry slipped the blunt safety tip of the shears under the top edge of the duct tape at the elbow. As the blades sliced through the heavy adhesive, the metallic smell of the tape gave way to something horrific. It was the unmistakable, sweet, sickening stench of an infected burn.
Evelyn drew in a sharp breath through her teeth. The woman with the clipboard took a half-step back.
When the final layer peeled away, my vision went red at the margins.
Finn’s forearm wasn't merely blistered. The outer layer of skin had been completely cooked and torn away when the original burn occurred. Dark, necrotic edges ringed a deep, raw patch the size of a coffee saucer on the top of his forearm. The adhesive from the duct tape had bonded directly to the weeping, raw tissue underneath, pulling pieces of skin with it as it came away. The entire limb was swollen to nearly twice its normal size, hot to the touch, and streaked with angry red lines tracking up toward his armpit.
“Second-degree, borderline third-degree scald,” Landry said, his voice dropping into a register of cold, controlled fury. “Secondary bacterial infection. How long ago did this happen, Finn?”
Finn didn't look at the doctor. He looked at me, tears silently rolling down his sunken cheeks. “Three days ago, Dad. Dwight threw the iron skillet into the sink because it was greasy, and the boiling water and grease splashed out all over me.”
“And what did he do after that, son?” Dr. Landry asked, his eyes never leaving the wound as he gently applied saline solution.
“He told me to shut my trap,” Finn whispered. “He told me if I cried loud enough to wake Brandi up from her nap, he’d put me in the dark shed with the black widows. Then he told me real men don’t waste money on doctors. He tossed me the roll of tape and made me wrap it tight so it wouldn't drip on the kitchen floor.”
The young woman with the clipboard stepped forward. “Mr. Mercer, I’m Brenda Hayes. I’m the hospital’s pediatric social worker.”
“I know who you are,” I said, never letting go of Finn’s small, trembling fingers. “Do what you have to do. Call whoever you need to call. Document everything.”
“I’m required by Louisiana state law to notify Child Protective Services and the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office immediately,” she said gently, her eyes full of sorrow and anger.
“Good,” I said. “Tell them to hurry. But before you call them, let me do something.”
I pulled my primary smartphone from my pocket. I stepped around the table and took six high-resolution photographs of Finn’s arm from every angle under the harsh medical lights. Then I photographed the deep purple thumbprint bruises on his small bicep—bruises in the distinct shape of an adult hand that had grabbed him and hoisted him off his feet.
“Hold still, buddy,” I whispered.
Then I unlocked the old disconnected phone, brought up the Notes app, and placed it on the clipboard in front of Brenda Hayes.
“Read that,” I told her. “Twenty-six entries. Written by an eight-year-old child using an old disconnected phone in his bedroom while his mother gambled away my savings and let a stray dog run our home.”
Hayes looked down at the screen. She began reading the notes:
*Day 4. Dwight yelled at Mommy. Mommy cried. Dwight told me I was a little parasite who cost too much money.*
*Day 11. Dwight’s boys pushed me down the stairs into the laundry room. They took my lunch money. I didn't eat at school today.*
*Day 18. I tried to call Dad from Mommy’s phone. She slapped my face and took it away. She said Dad doesn't care about us, he just cares about the oil.*
*Day 24. Hi Dad... My arm smells bad...*
Brenda Hayes wiped a tear from the corner of her eye with the sleeve of her cardigan. She looked up at me, her jaw set like concrete.
“Dr. Landry, we’re admitting this child immediately for IV antibiotics and emergency wound debridement,” Hayes said firmly. “I’m putting an administrative hold on his discharge. No one—and I mean no one—approaches this room without sheriff’s deputies present.”
“Understood,” Landry said, already drawing up an antibiotic syringe.
I leaned down until my forehead rested against Finn’s. “Finn. Listen to me carefully. You are safe here. These doctors are going to fix your arm. The pain is going to stop today. Do you hear me?”
“Are you leaving, Dad?” he sobbed, his composure finally shattering as the reality of the hospital caught up to him. “Don’t go back to the rig. Please don’t get on the helicopter.”
“I’m never leaving you again,” I swore, kissing the top of his greasy, tangled hair. “I have to handle some business at the house. But my sister Sarah is on her way right now. She’s going to sit right in that chair until I get back.”
My sister Sarah was an administrative supervisor for the state police barracks in Baton Rouge. Tougher than boiled rawhide, and she loved Finn more than life itself.
Ten minutes later, Sarah strode through the ER doors, her eyes blazing with protective fury. One look at Finn’s arm, and she didn't even ask questions. She just wrapped her arms around my boy and looked at me over his shoulder.
“Go,” she told me quietly. “Handle it cleanly, Wade. Don’t do anything that puts you in an orange jumpsuit. Finn needs you free.”
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“I won’t spend a night in jail,” I said. “I’m going to do this the offshore way. Methodical. Completely by the book. Until the pressure crushes them both.”
***
