Chương 2
For the first time since David struck me, something almost human passed through Dad’s expression.
Then someone answered the phone.
“Robert Hale.”
David snorted.
Dad turned slightly away.
“I need Colonel Mercer.”
A pause followed.
“No, this is not operational.”
Another pause.
“It concerns Claire.”
The room changed.
Not visibly.
Marisol was still beside my bed.
David was still angry.
The baby was still making small snuffling noises against my gown.
But Dad’s voice had acquired a precision that made every word feel measured before it left his mouth.
“Yes.”
He listened.
“Have legal contact me on my personal line.”
Another pause.
“No action against anyone.”
His eyes shifted to David.
“I said no action.”
David’s confidence flickered.
“What legal?”
Dad ignored him.
“I need a civilian referral in Virginia, preferably family law, domestic violence experience.”
My stomach tightened.
“Dad.”
“And have someone locate Patricia Wynn’s current number.”
He listened again.
“Yes, that Patricia Wynn.”
He ended the call.
David stared at him.
“What the hell was that?”
Dad slipped the phone back inside his jacket.
“A phone call.”
“You think you can intimidate me?”
“No.”
The simplicity of the answer seemed to irritate David more.
“You walk in here dressed like you crawled out of a hardware store, pull out some fake military phone, and suddenly I’m supposed to be scared?”
Dad looked down at his flannel shirt.
“Your mother hated this shirt.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“She tried to throw it away twice.”
Despite everything, a tiny laugh escaped me.
It hurt my abdomen so badly that I immediately winced.
Marisol leaned over.
“Easy.”
David stared at us as though we had lost our minds.
Then two hospital security officers appeared in the doorway.
The taller one addressed Marisol.
“This the gentleman?”
“Yes.”
David’s face reddened.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“You need to come with us, sir.”
“I’m the father.”
Marisol glanced at me.
I looked at my husband.
Sixteen hours earlier, he had kissed my forehead in the labor room and told me I was the toughest woman he knew.
Three weeks earlier, he had assembled the crib backward and refused to admit it until our oldest daughter, Emma, showed him the instruction diagram.
For thirteen years he had been the man who brought me coffee on Sunday mornings and also the man who sulked whenever one of our daughters was born because he had wanted a son.
Those men had always occupied the same body.
I had simply become skilled at looking toward whichever one hurt less.
“I want him out,” I said.
David’s mouth fell open.
“Claire.”
“Please leave.”
“You’re seriously choosing this?”
I looked at the child pressed against my chest.
“There shouldn’t be a choice.”
One security officer stepped beside David.
David jerked his arm away before the man touched him.
“Don’t put your hands on me.”
“Nobody has.”
“I know how this works.”
The officer’s expression suggested he had heard that sentence many times.
“Then let’s make it easy.”
David looked at Dad.
“This is you.”
Dad said nothing.
“You did this.”
“No,” I said.
David turned toward me.
“You hit me.”
The words sounded different when spoken aloud.
Not dramatic.
Not complicated.
Almost embarrassingly simple.
David stared at me.
His anger faltered.
For perhaps two seconds, he looked frightened.
Then pride rushed in to cover it.
“You’re going to regret making this into something it wasn’t.”
Marisol inhaled sharply.
Dad’s hand curled once at his side.
I held his gaze.
“No, David.”
My voice shook, but I kept going.
“You’re going to regret believing I wouldn’t.”
Security escorted him into the hallway.
His voice continued after he disappeared.
I heard something about lawyers, custody, his house, his daughters, and people being sorry.
Then the elevator doors opened somewhere down the corridor, and the noise faded.
Marisol closed my door.
Nobody spoke for a while.
My son sneezed.
Dad picked up the blue teddy bear and examined it as if he had forgotten why he had brought it.
“Your mother would’ve bought something nicer,” he said.
I looked at him.
“She would’ve bought something enormous that played music.”
“And required batteries.”
“And you would have removed the batteries.”
“Within an hour.”
I smiled, then started crying.
Dad sat carefully in the chair beside my bed.
He had never been good with tears.
When Mom died, he had stood beside me at the funeral holding my elbow as though grief were a slippery staircase.
Now he did the same thing in a different way.
He put his hand on the bed rail and waited.
“I should’ve left him before this,” I said.
Dad looked at the floor.
“Maybe.”
I had expected comfort.
The honesty hurt more, but it also let me breathe.
“You knew?”
“I knew you weren’t happy.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because every time I came close, you defended him.”
I looked away.
That was true.
The baby’s fingers opened against my chest.
Dad leaned closer.
“He really does have my eyes.”
A broken laugh escaped me.
“Apparently that’s caused some confusion.”
Dad’s mouth twitched.
Then his expression hardened again.
“Claire, the call I made doesn’t make this disappear.”
“I know.”
“You’ll need photographs of your face.”
“I know.”
“The hospital will document what happened.”
“I know.”
“And David may calm down tomorrow and apologize.”
That one made me look at him.
Dad held my gaze.
“Which may be harder than if he stays angry.”
I stared at the closed door.
My phone was on the bedside table.
The screen lit up.
DAVID.
Then again.
DAVID.
A third notification appeared from Emma.
Mom, why is Dad coming home without you?
My oldest daughter was twelve.
Three more girls were waiting at home with no idea that their father had walked into a hospital expecting a son and walked out accusing their mother of betrayal.
Dad saw my face.
“The girls?”
I nodded.
May you like
For the first time, the fear inside me became larger than the room.
David had threatened to take them.
