Page 49 of The Elements

I’ve never heard the name Vidar before and so, as we make our way downstairs, I ask Aaron to google it.

After some quick fumbling with his phone, he tells me that Vidar was the Norse god of vengeance, which feels somehow appropriate, considering the conversation I plan on having with the parents of a four-year-old child I’ve just finished treating.

“How are you with kids?” I ask him.

“Good in the sense that I like them,” he tells me. “Bad in the sense that I can’t bear to see them hurt.”

“They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t hurt,” I reply. “It’s not like they come here just for the fun of it. We’re not Euro Disney.”

He throws me a look that suggests he’s formulated an equally sarcastic reply in his head but doesn’t quite have the confidence to deliver it yet.

As we approach the second floor, I relate to him the boy’s past presentations.

He’s been treated in A I can tell that he means it. “Don’t you wonder what kind of person would hurt a child?”

“You obviously haven’t done your peds rotation yet,” I tell him. “When you do, you’ll see exactly the sort of people who do things like that. Most of the time, they’re called parents.”

“Not always though.”

“No.”

The boy’s father, Borje, who’s Swedish, looks anxious when he sees me marching down the corridor, as well he might, because if he thinks I’m going to fall for whatever ridiculous version of events he’s invented to explain what’s taken place here, then he’s delusional.

I don’t even waste my time saying hello, simply raise a finger to point him toward a nearby room, where his wife, Sharon, is already seated, cradling the boy on her lap.

The child is subdued, nursing a dummy in his mouth, his eyes half closed, barely alert.

Soft, wounded whimpers escape him from time to time, like an animal caught in a trap who’s slowly losing the will to fight on.

Exhausted both from the medications he’s been given and the ordeal he’s going through, his central nervous system is working overtime to force him to sleep.

When I examined the burn earlier, a large blister had already developed on the palm of his hand and the damage to the subcutaneous blood vessels had turned the skin alabaster white.

Thankfully, the attending nurse had given him a shot to relieve what must have been unbearable pain, but even he, who must see harrowing injuries on a daily basis, looked upset by the child’s distress.

I gave instructions for the wound to be cleaned, dressed, and treated with a course of silver sulfadiazine, before asking to meet the parents privately to clarify the chain of events that led their son here.

“So, what happened?” I ask without any preamble, pausing for only a moment before adding, “This time.”

A silver box sits on the table in the center of the room with tissues peeping from the top, while a portrait of the king and queen, wearing comforting expressions, hangs on the wall.

This is the room where people are brought to be told that a loved one has died.

It’s where A I am. “I need to know exactly what happened here. This is your last chance to tell me the truth.”

“I already have,” he insists. “The cooker, the electric heat—”

“A child cannot inflict that level of trauma on himself,” I insist, raising my voice. “It’s ridiculous of you even to suggest it.”

I mean trauma in the medical sense, of course, not the emotional.

Although I can only guess at how much distress this small boy has endured in his short life.

He must believe that the world is a place he entered only to be hurt.

He must long for release. In his mother’s arms, he cries out and tries to sit up, but, to my astonishment, when she attempts to comfort him, he reaches out to his thug of a father before a burst of pain in his hand makes him explode in near-hysterical tears.

I’ve seen this before. He wants Borje because if he can convince the man that he will be good from now on, then the man might never hurt him again.

“How long do we need to stay here?” asks the mother, Sharon, and I turn to study her for the first time.

She’s English, a plain sort of woman, overweight but dressing to disguise it, with dry skin and dark bags beneath her eyes.

Although she’s younger than me, she could pass for ten years older.

I wonder how she can allow this man, this husband, this person who she once went on dates with, and laughed with, and fell in love with, and slept with, and holidayed with, and got pregnant with, and had a child with—how she can let him hurt her little boy in the way that he has.

“As long as it takes,” I say, softening my tone now, for I don’t want her to feel any worse than she already must. “This is the third time that Vidar has presented in a year, Mrs. Forsberg. That gives us cause for concern.”

“He is a mischievous boy,” says Borje.

“A mischievous boy,” I repeat, shaking my head, almost laughing. I wonder where he picks up these phrases.

“But a good boy,” he adds, looking directly at me. There’s something in his eyes. Something pained. Something asking me to—what? Forgive him? Accept that he doesn’t mean to do the things he does to his own child, but that he has no choice?

Fuck you , I think.

I will destroy your life.

I will bury you alive.

“ He’s tired, ” says Sharon, lifting the child slightly off her lap. “He needs to be in his own bed.”

“No,” I say. “Not yet.”

“Then when?”

I turn back to Borje.

“When you tell me the truth.”

“I’ve told you,” he insists. “I’ve—”

“No,” I say. “You can forget that. Your explanation makes no sense. So you can tell me everything now, or I can go outside and call the police and let them get to the bottom of it. It’s your choice.”

I turn back to Sharon, willing her to set aside whatever fear she might feel toward her husband.

What violence has he inflicted upon her?

I wonder. If she were to remove her clothes, what scars or bruises would I discover on her body?

Using only my eyes, I try to tell her that I can protect her too, if only she trusts me.

From her bag comes the sound of a phone ringing.

To my surprise, she retrieves it, answers it, and talks to the caller as if nothing that is taking place in this room matters in the slightest. And as she does so, the child remains in her arms, weeping softly, unaware of the pain that will come in the middle of the night, or the following morning, when the painkillers have worn off.

“Borje,” says Sharon, passing the boy roughly toward her husband. The child is like a rag doll, his limbs flopping uselessly. “It’s Sara. Take him, will you?”

“Whoever Sara is, she can wait,” says Aaron, speaking for the first time since we gathered here. His tone mixes authority with controlled rage. I turn to look at him, surprised by his intervention. “This is more important.”

“Sara is my boss,” replies Sharon irritably, waving him away as if he’s utterly insignificant. “I can’t just ignore her.”

Honestly, I’m surprised that she works at all.

She looks like one of those women who sits at home all day, watching daytime television programs that tell her how to make tasty, healthy meals for her family, using ingredients she couldn’t possibly afford, let alone source, before frying fish fingers for her son and throwing a few cheese strings on the plate.

In this moment, I feel as much antagonism toward her as I do toward her husband.

They deserve each other, but Vidar doesn’t deserve either of them.

“When I come back,” says Sharon, standing up and walking toward the door, “we really have to go.” She’s addressing me now like I’m the help.

“So, can you just get my son everything he needs, please? His medications or creams or whatever? We can take care of him from here. We’re his parents, after all. ”

She doesn’t wait for a reply, just walks out, turning her attention back to her phone and letting the door swing closed behind her.

The room falls into silence for the best part of a minute, until:

“Help us,” whispers Borje.

“What?” I ask, uncertain whether I have heard him right.

“Help us,” he repeats, still beneath his breath, as if he’s too frightened even to let me hear what he’s saying. “Please. You must help us.”

At first, I don’t understand what he means, but then he glances toward the window that faces out onto the corridor, where his wife is gesticulating wildly on her phone, before standing up, carrying Vidar over to Aaron, and placing the child in my intern’s arms. The boy turns his head, muttering something unintelligible, before nestling into Aaron’s chest. Sharon has disappeared now, but still, Borje moves away from the window and toward the wall, where he cannot be seen from outside, before turning his back on me.

Slowly, he pulls his polo shirt up, dragging the hem toward the base of his neck tattoo, exposing his back, which is covered with purple bruises and scratches.

Someone has hurt him too. Someone has beaten this powerfully built man and he has not been able or willing to ward off the blows.

I study his injuries. They are terrible.

They need medical attention. And they are, of course, hidden in a place where others cannot see them.

Once he’s certain that I understand, he lets his shirt fall again and turns back to me.

“Help us,” he repeats. “Please.”

And it’s only now that I glance outside and see Sharon marching back toward us, her face contorted with anger, looking as if she will not accept another moment of defiance from either her husband, her child, Aaron, or me.

That’s when I understand what is actually going on here.

That it’s not always the man who is the offender.

That women can be abusers too.

I look at Borje, but before I can say anything, Aaron pipes up.

“Of course,” he says, for some reason excluding me in what he says next. “Of course I’ll help you.”