Chương 4
“Car accident.”
“I’m sorry.”
“People kept arriving for her.”
He swallowed once.
“Friends, cousins, people from work.”
His eyes moved back to me.
“No one should have to hear bad news alone.”
Before I could answer, a nurse called his name from the doorway.
His mother had been moved to cardiac observation.
He nodded, then looked at me again.
“You have my assistant’s number?”
“I don’t have your assistant’s anything.”
He took my phone from the blanket with permission implied by the question in his eyes, entered a number, and returned it.
“Her name is Mara.”
“Why would I call her?”
“In case the hospital creates a problem about billing before your husband fixes whatever he did.”
I almost laughed.
“You don’t even know me.”
“Correct.”
“Then why?”
He looked mildly uncomfortable.
It was the first expression I had seen on him that seemed younger than his face.
“Because sometimes money is only useful when it removes a stupid obstacle.”
The nurse called him again.
This time he went.
I watched the doors close behind him and wondered whether I had imagined half the conversation under medication.
Recovery came in fragments.
A blood-pressure cuff squeezed my arm every few minutes.
My legs remained numb.
Someone pressed on my abdomen and apologized when I cried out.
Tasha reappeared with my phone, my damp handbag, and the expression of a woman prepared to fight administrative departments personally.
“Your husband’s assistant called.”
My chest tightened.
“What did they want?”
“Insurance issue is being reviewed.”
“Reviewed.”
“That’s what I said.”
She adjusted my blanket.
“Then another woman called.”
“Sabrina?”
“No idea.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked whether you had delivered.”
The room seemed to sharpen.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I can’t discuss patient information.”
I stared at Tasha.
“Thank you.”
“She got annoyed.”
“That sounds like Sabrina.”
Tasha’s mouth twitched.
“Then she asked whether Mr. Mercer was listed as your emergency contact.”
I looked at my phone.
“Why?”
“She didn’t say.”
A small unease opened beneath the exhaustion.
Sabrina knew I had gone into labor.
Ethan could have told her.
That was the obvious explanation.
Yet something about the question bothered me.
Not whether the babies were alive.
Not whether I was okay.
Whether Ethan remained my emergency contact.
“Can I change it?”
“Yes.”
“Remove him.”
Tasha paused.
“Who should replace him?”
I almost said no one.
Then I looked at the number Adrian had entered.
Mara Vale.
I shook my head.
“That would be insane.”
“What would?”
“Nothing.”
I gave Tasha the name of my old college roommate instead.
“Rachel Kim.”
“You know her number?”
I did.
I had not called Rachel in nearly two years.
We had once shared a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn and a standing Sunday ritual involving takeout noodles and terrible reality television.
Then I married Ethan, moved across the river, and became difficult to reach in the way people become difficult to reach when their lives are comfortable enough to make old friendships inconvenient.
Tasha handed me the phone.
“You should probably tell her before we do.”
It rang five times.
I nearly ended the call.
Then a sleepy voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Rachel.”
Silence.
“Claire?”
I closed my eyes.
“Hi.”
“What happened?”
The question came instantly, with none of the politeness I deserved.
“I had the babies.”
Another silence.
“What?”
“They came early.”
“How early?”
“Twenty-eight weeks.”
I heard movement, then a light switched on somewhere at her end.
“Where are you?”
I told her.
“I’m coming.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Don’t start.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
There was rustling, a drawer opening, something falling.
Rachel swore under her breath.
“Is Ethan there?”
“No.”
The rustling stopped.
“Where is he?”
“Los Angeles.”
“Why?”
I looked toward the ceiling.
“With his girlfriend.”
Rachel said nothing for three full seconds.
Then came a calm so precise I recognized it immediately as rage.
“I’m putting on pants.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
Pain pulled sharply across my incision.
I hissed.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“That was not a joke.”
“I know.”
“Are the babies alive?”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
“Technically.”
“Good.”
Her voice cracked on the word.
Then she cleared her throat.
“I’ll be there soon.”
When the call ended, I stared at the dark screen.
For the first time that night, being found did not feel like something that required money.
A nurse arrived to take me to the NICU as soon as I was stable enough.
The wheelchair made me feel ninety years old.
Every vibration through the floor pulled at the incision.
I gripped the armrests and concentrated on not vomiting.
The NICU doors required a badge.
Inside, the lights were low and the machines were not.
Monitors chirped everywhere.
Ventilators breathed for babies who could not yet do enough of it themselves.
Parents sat beside incubators in exhausted silence.
One father slept with his forehead against folded arms.
A woman in a green sweater pumped breast milk behind a curtain while watching something on her phone with subtitles.
The ordinary details made the room more frightening.
This was not an emergency anymore.
It was a place people lived.
A nurse named Monica showed me where to wash my hands.
She explained every tube before taking me to Lily.
My daughter lay beneath warm light with her face mostly obscured.
“Can she hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Will she know my voice?”
“She may.”
I placed one finger through the incubator opening and rested it near her hand without touching until Monica guided me closer.
Lily’s fingers moved.
They closed around the tip of mine.
Barely.
That tiny pressure reached somewhere no medication could numb.
“Hi,” I whispered.
My throat closed.
“I’m Claire.”
Monica smiled.
“You can call yourself Mom.”
“I’m working up to it.”
Across the room, a phone vibrated in my bag.
Once.
Then again.
Monica handed it to me.
The screen showed twelve missed calls from Ethan.
May you like
Underneath them was a message from an unknown Los Angeles number.
You need to call me before Ethan does something worse.
