I walked into the kitchen and found the newborn I cared for lying in the sink under a metal colander, with flour dust on his blanket and one sock missing.

For one second, my mind refused to make sense of what I was seeing. The colander covered most of his small body. Flour dust clung to the blanket beneath him. His bare foot stuck out where the missing sock should have been.

I reached into the sink. I lifted the colander. I pulled the blanket back just enough to check him.

That was when I saw the red pressure ring around his ankle.

It wasn't a random crease from the blanket. The fabric had been pinned down tightly enough to leave a clear circle around his skin. I touched the edge of the blanket, trying to figure out what had held it there, while keeping one hand close to the baby's body.

I heard movement behind me.

I barely started to turn before his foster mother grabbed me and slammed my cheek into the cabinet.

Pain flashed under my eye. A deep purple ache seemed to spread almost immediately, hot and sharp enough to blur the corner of my vision.

She didn't apologize. She didn't check the baby. She stood between me and the sink with one yellow rubber glove still on her hand, staring at me like I was the problem for lifting that colander.

The baby started screaming.

That sound cut through everything.

I looked at him. I looked at her. I looked at the heavy stone mortar sitting on the counter within reach.

She moved toward me again.

I grabbed the mortar and swung once.

It struck her at the brow. Blood ran down toward the yellow glove on her hand as she staggered, but she didn't stay down. She pushed herself upright almost immediately and lunged past me toward the sink.

"Don't touch him," I said.

She did anyway.

She grabbed the screaming baby and pulled him against her chest. I reached for the blanket, terrified that another hard tug would tighten whatever had caused that ring around his ankle.

"Give him to me."

She twisted away.

Not toward the door. Not toward a crib. Away from me.

The baby's cry rose higher as she clutched him tighter. Flour shook loose from the blanket onto the kitchen floor. The empty sockless foot kicked once against the fabric.

I stopped reaching for her arms because the baby was between us. Every instinct in me wanted to rip him away, but one wrong grab could hurt him more.

So I kept my hands open.

"Put him down safely," I said.

She backed away instead.

Then the kitchen door burst open.

Her husband rushed in and took in the whole scene at once—the crying baby, the colander in the sink, the flour-covered blanket, the blood running down his wife's glove, and the swelling under my eye.

He didn't ask for an explanation.

He crossed the kitchen fast.