PART 2 – Twenty Minutes After My Sister Left, Paige Began Crying, and Every Ordinary Way I Tried to Comfort Her Made Me More Worried

The first thing I tried was feeding her.

It seemed obvious.

Paige had started whimpering not long after Kate and her husband left.

I knew she hadn't slept well.

I also knew that babies sometimes became upset simply because they were hungry.

So I warmed a bottle.

Nothing about that decision felt unusual.

I expected her to accept it.

Maybe she would drink enough to relax.

Maybe afterward she would fall asleep.

That would have been a perfectly ordinary morning.

But Paige didn't want the bottle.

She refused it.

I tried to understand why.

Perhaps her gums were hurting.

That was still the explanation I had been given.

A baby with sore gums might not want to feed.

I reminded myself of that.

And I tried not to let her crying make me anxious.

I had looked after babies before.

I knew the person holding them sometimes needed to stay calm even when they couldn't.

So I picked Paige up.

I made sure she was supported.

Then I held her against my shoulder.

I began walking slowly around the living room.

Back and forth.

Small, careful circles.

I wanted the movement to soothe her.

I wanted her to feel secure.

And I wanted to believe that if I stayed patient, she would settle.

At first, she was making those soft, unhappy sounds babies make when something is bothering them.

They were uncomfortable to hear.

But not yet frightening.

I kept walking.

I adjusted how I held her.

I tried to find a position that seemed easier for her.

Nothing helped.

Her crying became sharper.

Not all at once.

It seemed to build.

A little louder.

A little more strained.

A little harder to understand.

I remember paying closer attention to the sound.

The more I listened, the less it resembled the ordinary fussiness I had expected.

There was something about the way it kept increasing.

As though she was trying to tell me something and had no other way to do it.

Of course, that is what crying is for a baby.

I knew that.

But there are different kinds of crying.

There is a tired cry.

There is a hungry cry.

And then there is the sound a baby makes when something genuinely hurts.

I didn't recognize that last sound immediately.

That is difficult for me to admit.

I kept thinking about teething.

I kept thinking about the bottle she had refused.

I kept believing that I simply hadn't found the right way to comfort her.

So I continued holding her.

I continued walking.

I tried to be gentle.

That part matters.

I was not bouncing her around or moving her roughly.

I knew she was small.

I knew she was already upset.

I was trying to make things better, not worse.

Then I shifted the hand supporting her lower back.

It was an ordinary adjustment.

The sort of movement a person makes without thinking when carrying a baby.

My hand had been supporting her.

I moved it slightly.

And Paige screamed.

I mean she really screamed.

The sound was so sudden that I stopped walking immediately.

Her body became stiff against me.

Her little hands closed tightly.

I could feel how tense she was.

For a second, I didn't understand what had happened.

I had not dropped her.

I had not made any sudden movement.

I had only changed the position of my hand.

Yet her reaction was immediate.

And it was severe.

I remember looking down at her.

Her dark hair was damp against her forehead.

She was sweating.

Her small fists were clenched.

There was nothing relaxed about her.

Nothing that suggested she was merely being restless.

Something was hurting her.

That was the first clear thought I had.

Not that she was difficult.

Not that she was overtired.

That she was in pain.

Once I understood that, I stopped trying to settle her by walking.

I didn't want to keep moving her without knowing what was wrong.

I held her as steadily as I could.

I remember how carefully I began thinking about every movement.

Where my hands were.

How her body rested against me.

Whether changing her position might hurt her again.

It felt strange to be so frightened of making a simple adjustment while holding my own niece.

But I had heard that scream.

And I knew I didn't want to hear it again.

I couldn't ignore it.

I needed to look at her properly.

Maybe something was wrong with her diaper.

Maybe her clothes were too tight.

Maybe there was some source of discomfort I hadn't noticed.

I didn't know.

I only knew I needed to check.

So I carried her to the changing table.

I moved slowly.

I tried to keep her body steady.

The trip from the living room to the changing table was not important in itself.

What mattered was how differently I held her.

A few minutes earlier, I had been walking around to comfort a fussy baby.

Now I was afraid that touching the wrong place might cause another scream.

I laid her down carefully.

I was still thinking about ordinary possibilities.

A diaper problem.

A clothing problem.

Something irritating her skin.

I had not yet imagined what I would find.

That is another thing I remember clearly.

My mind was still reaching for the simplest explanation.

Even after that scream.

Even after the stiffness in her body.

I wanted an answer that would make everything normal again.

I wanted to find something I could fix.

I looked at her green sleeper.

I began opening it.

I was careful because she had already reacted so badly to being moved.

I didn't want the fabric pulling against anything painful.

As I loosened the clothing, I watched her legs.

And then I noticed something that made me stop.

Her right leg was moving.

Not comfortably.

She was still upset.

But it was moving.

Her left leg was different.

There was very little movement on that side.

I watched again.

I wanted to be certain.

I didn't want to frighten myself over something I had misunderstood.

But the difference remained.

One leg moved when she cried.

The other barely did.

I felt the first real surge of fear.

Until then, I had known she was hurting.

Now I was beginning to understand that the pain might be connected to a specific part of her body.

Her left leg.

I stared at it.

I didn't touch it to test anything.

I didn't try to bend it.

I knew that would be wrong when she was already in so much pain.

But I couldn't stop looking at the difference.

A six-month-old baby doesn't decide to protect a leg the way an older child might.

She cannot explain where the pain is coming from.

She simply reacts.

And Paige's reaction was telling me something important.

I remembered the hand beneath her lower back.

I remembered how she had screamed when I changed my hold.

I thought about how her leg might have moved against me.

I couldn't say exactly what had caused that particular burst of pain.

But I knew I shouldn't dismiss it.

I leaned closer.

I wanted to inspect the area without making her more uncomfortable.

I had still not seen the injury.

Her clothes and diaper were in the way.

So I continued carefully.

There was a part of me that wanted to stop and call Kate immediately.

But what would I have said?

That Paige was crying?

Kate had already warned me she might be fussy.

That she was moving one leg less than the other?

That was important, but I still didn't know what was happening.

I needed to see whether there was something obvious.

I needed to understand enough to help her.

So I stayed at the changing table.

My hands were more cautious now.

Paige was still crying.

I was watching her face and her legs at the same time.

I kept reminding myself not to rush.

There was no reason to make her suffer more because I was frightened.

But my thoughts were becoming harder to organize.

The bottle hadn't helped.

Holding her hadn't helped.

Walking hadn't helped.

And the movement that should have been harmless had caused a terrible scream.

I couldn't keep calling that teething.

I simply couldn't.

I began loosening her diaper.

Very gently.

I was expecting to look for some ordinary irritation.

That was the last ordinary explanation I tried to give myself.

Then I noticed a smell that didn't belong there.

Soft.

Floral.

Powdery.

It was faint, but unmistakably different from what I expected.

I stopped.

I knew that scent.

Not because it belonged to anything in a baby's diaper.

Because it reminded me of cosmetics.

For a moment, I didn't understand why I would be smelling makeup while changing Paige.

Then I looked more closely at her thigh.

And I saw a strange beige coating on her skin.

It was thick enough to notice.

The color did not look natural.

I stared.

I had gone to the changing table looking for the cause of a baby's crying.

Instead, I was looking at something that appeared to have been deliberately applied to her leg.

Something that did not belong there.

That was when I stopped thinking like a babysitter trying to settle a child.

I started thinking about what someone might have been trying to cover.

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Click here to continue reading: PART 3: I Found a Thick Beige Coating on Paige’s Swollen Thigh, and One Gentle Wipe Showed Me Why She Had Been Screaming

Story Parts

My Sister Left Her Six-Month-Old Daughter With Me That Saturday, and One Strange Thing She Said Kept Coming Back to Me

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