Marcus had known. He had known since the driveway, since the flinch, and maybe he had known since he saw the long sleeves, and maybe he had known for longer than that. But knowing was not the same as seeing, and he was not ready for it, and his body did something without him, a kind of fold in the middle, his hand going out to the floor to steady himself.
The backs of his son’s legs were striped. There was no other word for it. Raised welts, dark against Caleb’s brown skin, angry at the edges, some of them crossing each other, running from just above the back of the knee up under the hem of the pajamas. In two places the skin had split, small and neat, and someone had cleaned the cuts and put a clear bandage over them, and Marcus knew without asking that it had been Danielle, that she had done it with her hands shaking. When Caleb, without being asked, pushed up the sleeve of his right arm, there were more on his forearm, a cluster of them, where he had put his arm up to protect himself. And higher, on the soft inside of the upper arm, four small oval bruises in a row, already going purple, the size and spacing of an adult’s fingers.
Marcus knew those marks. He knew them from the inside. He knew what the welts would feel like tomorrow, tight and hot, and the day after, when they started to itch. He knew that his son would wear long sleeves to school on Thursday and Friday and tell his teacher he was cold. He knew that the bruises on the arm were where she had held him, because you had to hold them, because otherwise they twisted away.
"Okay," he said. His voice came out strange and far away. "Okay, buddy. You can put it down. Thank you for showing me."
Caleb let the pajama leg fall. He did not turn back around. He stood with his back to his father and his head down, and Marcus got up off the floor and put his arms around him from behind, carefully, so carefully, the way he had held him on the first day of his life when he was afraid his hands were too big. Caleb leaned back into him. He was not crying anymore. He was very quiet.
"Go up and get Rex," Danielle said softly. Rex was the stuffed tyrannosaurus Caleb had slept with since he was three and now pretended to have outgrown. "He’s on your bed. I forgot to pack him."
Caleb looked at Marcus.
"Go on," Marcus said. "I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere."
They listened to him go up the stairs, the soft thump of bare feet, the creak on the fourth step, the door of his room. Then Danielle sat down at the kitchen table, very suddenly, as if her legs had decided for her, and put both her hands flat on the wood.