Day 17. Self-Inflicted Wound
Characters: Jeff, Alan, Scott, (Lucy off-screen)
Warnings for implied past physical child abuse, stitches, referenced canon character death.
Jeff sighed. It was going to be a long, long day today. He had to take Alan and Scott to their doctor for a check-up. They had both been released from the hospital for the funeral, but they still needed medical care.
His Mom was coming over so someone was home for his other three boys, and he'd made an appointment for the mid-afternoon, giving him time for a meeting beforehand. Neither his oldest or youngest would be back at school until they had been given the all-clear.
The phone call he'd made for the appointment had been…odd. The receptionist had been confused over the appointments. In the end Jeff said he'd sort it out when he brought the boys in.
The boys slept in while Jeff took his middle three to their respective schools, but both were down and eating breakfast when he returned. Both grinned at him while he ruffled Scott's hair and kissed Alan's head before disappearing for his meeting.
Doctor Hannah Hazell had been their family doctor since he and Lucy had married and moved into the farmhouse. She was delighted to meet Alan. The five-year-old was bouncy, despite his injuries. She was more than surprised to see Scott, however, and Jeff began to feel the first stirring of something being very wrong.
She saw to Alan first. The stitches looked good, she smiled as Alan giggled when she ran her fingers lightly over his ribs. They were obviously healing nicely if Alan could laugh without cringing. She sent him off with a nurse to the play area while she talked to Jeff and Scott.
The boy was almost a man now. The last time Hannah had seen Scott he was a skinny seven-year-old with a broken arm. Now he was almost 15, still skinny but almost as tall as his father.
She looked him over. His leg stitching was really neatly done, he quite probably wouldn't even have a scar. Scott was quiet, withdrawn. Not really that unlike the little boy who hid behind his Mom. When the receptionist had told her that Jeff thought his family was still registered with them it had prompted Hannah to pull what little they had of Scott's medical records, surprised that they still had them. Normally they would have been sent on to the next doctor.
The file was thin, but telling. After several suspicious injuries, some of which had been specified as self-inflicted wounds, Hannah had herself written her thoughts. And not long after she'd decided to report the matter to child services Lucy had moved the family, and her then-boss said that simply wasn't enough evidence to bring the police in.
Hannah's reading had recalled everything to mind. And she used the time treating Scott to gather her thoughts and how she was going to talk to his father.
How was she going to tell the newly-widowed man her suspicions from eight years ago?
That there was no way that some of those injuries were self-inflicted.