Chương 8
“That is not fair.”
“No.”
She breathed once.
“It isn’t.”
Ryan looked genuinely confused.
Emily continued.
“None of this is fair.”
She turned toward the door.
Ryan caught her wrist.
It was not hard.
The grip lasted perhaps one second.
Emily stopped anyway.
Ryan released her immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
Diane was already standing behind the glass.
Emily looked at the place on her wrist where his fingers had been.
Nothing showed.
Ryan followed her eyes.
His face changed.
“I wasn’t—”
“I know.”
“I just wanted you to stop.”
“I know.”
The words frightened her more than if he had denied touching her.
Ryan stepped backward.
Emily opened the clinic door.
“Don’t come to my work again.”
“Emily.”
“Please.”
He stood in the cold holding two coffees.
She went inside.
Diane waited until the door shut.
Then she said, “You want me to write down what time he came?”
Emily looked at her.
“Why?”
Diane shrugged, but her face remained serious.
“Because sometimes later you wish you had written down boring things while they were still boring.”
Emily looked through the glass.
Ryan had not moved.
She thought of the screenshot from three forty that morning.
Then she looked back at Diane.
“Eight twenty-six,” she said.
Diane picked up a pen.
Diane wrote the time on a yellow sticky note, folded it once, and tucked it beneath the keyboard without making a ceremony of it.
Emily went back to Mr. Dalton with her face warmer than the treatment room.
He glanced at the clock.
“Should I pretend I didn’t hear any of that?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.”
He lifted the pulley handle.
“My hearing has been unreliable since 1998.”
Emily adjusted the strap around his wrist and told him to keep his shoulder down.
For the next thirty minutes, she counted repetitions while some part of her remained outside beneath the awning, watching Ryan’s hand close around her wrist.
It had not hurt.
That detail kept presenting itself as evidence for his defense.
She hated that her mind was already building his case.
By ten, Ryan’s truck was gone.
By eleven, Emily had convinced herself she was fine enough to stop checking the parking lot every time the clinic door opened.
At eleven fifteen, Diane slid a sandwich onto the desk beside her.
“I didn’t order this.”
“I did.”
“You’re becoming invasive.”
“Turkey, no mustard.”
Emily looked at her.
“How do you know I hate mustard?”
“You’ve worked here four years.”
Diane went back to answering the phone.
Emily unwrapped the sandwich and ate half standing at the counter.
Ordinary kindness felt dangerous that day.
It made everything she had been tolerating elsewhere look brighter by comparison.
At noon, her supervisor, Dr. Marcus Lee, asked her into his office.
Marcus was forty-four, precise, and usually able to deliver unpleasant information in the same tone he used to discuss parking validation.
He closed the door.
“Diane told me there was a personal issue this morning.”
Emily felt embarrassed immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“That wasn’t a complaint.”
“Oh.”
“She wanted me to know in case he comes back.”
Emily sat straighter.
“He won’t.”
Marcus rested his forearms on the desk.
“You know that?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
He let the word sit.
“If someone is waiting for you, confronting you, or making you uncomfortable here, tell us.”
“I can handle Ryan.”
“I’m not saying you can’t.”
“He’s not dangerous.”
Marcus gave a small nod.
“Also not what I said.”
Emily looked toward the framed anatomy print behind him.
A shoulder joint had been drawn in clean red and blue lines, every tendon exactly where it belonged.
“He’s my husband.”
“I know.”
“I left yesterday.”
Marcus’s expression shifted only slightly.
“That sounds complicated.”
“It is.”
“You need time off?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
He leaned back.
“Then work.”
The answer relieved her.
Marcus picked up a chart, signaling the conversation was over.
As Emily reached the door, he added, “And Emily?”
She turned.
“If he shows up again, you don’t have to be polite because he married you.”
She nodded once.
In the hallway, her phone vibrated inside her scrub pocket.
She waited until she reached the supply room before checking it.
The message was from Linda.
We need to talk woman to woman.
Emily almost deleted it.
Then another arrived.
There are things about Ryan’s father you don’t understand.
Emily read that twice.
She thought of Ryan outside the clinic saying his father used to throw towels at Linda.
The first message irritated her.
The second made her curious.
Curiosity was not forgiveness.
Still, she did not delete either.
She worked through the afternoon.
At three forty-five, a stroke patient named Marisol took six unassisted steps between parallel bars and began crying when she realized no one was holding her gait belt.
Her husband started crying too.
Emily did not.
She smiled, handed Marisol a tissue, and wrote six steps in the chart.
Then she went into the restroom and cried for two minutes with one hand pressed over her mouth.
She was not sure which part of the day had finally reached her.
At five, Megan picked her up.
“You look worse.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“Consistency is important.”
Emily buckled her seat belt.
“Linda texted me.”
Megan’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“What does she want?”
“To talk woman to woman.”
“That phrase should require a permit.”
“She also said there are things about Ryan’s father I don’t understand.”
Megan pulled away from the curb.
“And do you care?”
“I don’t know.”
“That means yes.”
Emily watched a city bus hiss to a stop beside them.
“I want to know why they act like this.”
Megan looked over.
“That is not the same as needing to know.”
“No.”
“Also, explanation is how people sneak excuses into your house.”
Emily frowned.
“That sounded rehearsed.”
“I listen to podcasts.”
“Of course you do.”
They drove two blocks in silence.
Megan tapped the steering wheel with one thumb.
May you like
“What are you thinking?”
“That Linda might tell me something Ryan won’t.”
