Chương 5
He hung up.
Owen’s crying softened as Daniel rocked him.
He opened the diaper bag and found the pacifier the nurse had tucked into a side pocket.
Owen accepted it for three seconds, spat it onto the floor, and screamed.
“Yeah,” Daniel whispered.
“That’s about right.”
He picked up the pacifier, washed it under the sink, then stood there longer than necessary with cold water running over his fingers.
The pills.
There had been pills once.
After Daniel tore two ligaments in his shoulder at the warehouse eighteen months earlier, the urgent-care doctor had prescribed pain medication.
When the prescription ran out, Daniel had discovered that his shoulder still hurt and that he liked the quiet warmth the medication put between him and everything else.
He had never bought pills on the street.
He had never stolen them.
He had never become the man Laura accused him of being Monday night.
But he had lied about how many he took.
He had hidden a refill.
He had promised her it was over.
There was enough truth around the edges of Laura’s accusation to make denial sound exactly like denial.
The knocking came again.
Daniel unlocked the door.
A teenage employee in a green polo stood outside beside an elderly man.
“You can’t stay in there all day,” the employee said.
“Sorry.”
Daniel walked past them.
Ruth was waiting beside the refrigerated drinks.
She had bought two bottles of water and a banana.
She handed him the banana.
“No.”
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He took it.
They stood near the front window while cars passed outside.
Ruth did not ask about the call.
That restraint made Daniel trust her slightly more than her kindness had.
He peeled the banana.
His hand shook badly enough that a strip of peel tore off.
“My wife told my sister she was afraid of me.”
Ruth’s face changed.
She did not say she was sure Laura had not meant it.
She did not tell him he seemed like a good man.
Daniel was grateful for both omissions.
“Are you dangerous to her?” she asked.
“No.”
“Are you dangerous to him?”
“No.”
“Are you using something?”
His eyes snapped toward her.
“You don’t get to ask me that.”
“No, I don’t.”
She picked up her grocery bag.
“But the people at that hospital do.”
Daniel looked away.
A police cruiser passed through the intersection.
He watched it until it disappeared.
“I had a prescription problem,” he said.
“How long ago?”
“More than a year.”
“And now?”
“Nothing.”
Ruth nodded once.
“Then going back gives you a chance to prove that.”
“You think that’s what happens?”
“No.”
Her answer surprised him.
“I think going back means walking into a building where people may already have decided what your behavior means.”
Daniel folded the banana peel inward.
“Great.”
“But running means you make their worst interpretation easier.”
His phone vibrated.
This time the message was from Cynthia.
Please return voluntarily.
A second message arrived.
Laura is asking to see Owen.
Daniel read it twice.
His anger came first.
It was hot and clean and almost welcome.
Laura had told people she was afraid of him, and now she wanted him to carry their son back to her as if Daniel were some temporary custodian who had misunderstood his assignment.
Then another thought followed, quieter and harder to resist.
Laura was awake.
For three days he had sat beside her bed listening to machines breathe and beep while doctors used words like stabilization and neurological response.
He had begged her to wake up.
Now she had.
And she was asking for their son.
Daniel put the banana in the trash.
“Which bus goes back to St. Anne’s?”
Ruth studied him.
“The number eight.”
“When?”
She checked the transit app on her phone.
“Eleven minutes.”
Daniel nodded.
His phone vibrated again.
He expected Cynthia.
Instead, a photograph appeared in a message from Mara.
It showed a small orange prescription bottle lying on a hospital bedside table.
Daniel enlarged the image.
The label bore his name.
The medication was oxycodone.
The fill date was three weeks ago.
Daniel stared until the letters blurred.
He had never seen that bottle before.
Mara’s message appeared beneath it.
They found this in Laura’s overnight bag.
Daniel read the fill date again, then the dosage, then the prescribing physician’s name.
None of it changed.
“Someone used my name.”
Ruth looked at the photograph but did not touch his phone.
“You’re certain?”
“I haven’t taken oxycodone in fourteen months.”
“That wasn’t quite what I asked.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I did not fill that prescription.”
“Then don’t delete anything.”
“Why would I delete it?”
“Because scared people do strange things when they think something makes them look guilty.”
He started to object, then stopped because five minutes earlier he had considered ignoring a hospital social worker and disappearing into his apartment with a newborn.
He forwarded Mara’s photograph to his own email, then took screenshots of the message thread.
His fingers moved too quickly, and he had to redo one because he accidentally captured the volume indicator across the top.
Ruth watched without commenting.
“Three weeks ago,” Daniel said.
“What happened three weeks ago?”
“Nothing.”
Ruth waited.
Daniel rubbed his thumb along the edge of his phone.
“We had a fight.”
“What about?”
“Money.”
“That sounds like something.”
“We fought about money every month.”
Owen had fallen asleep again, his cheek pressed against Daniel’s shirt.
Daniel lowered himself into a plastic chair beside the store’s lottery machine.
Three weeks ago, Laura had been thirty-seven weeks pregnant and standing in the kitchen with a stack of envelopes spread across the counter.
She had found the second notice from the electric company.
Daniel had told her he had already handled it.
May you like
She had asked why handling things always seemed to involve hiding them first.
He had said something cruel about her being able to worry professionally because he was the one still working ten-hour shifts.
