Chương 4
“Come with us.”
Ryan caught my arm.
“I’ll be right behind you.”
I looked at his phone.
“Don’t call her.”
He blinked.
“Claire.”
“Don’t call your mother.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“I mean it.”
His jaw shifted.
For a second I saw something that hurt almost as much as fear.
Resentment.
Not because he thought Linda was innocent.
Because I had told him what he could not do with his own mother.
Then it was gone.
“Go with Sophie.”
I followed the nurse through the doors.
The pediatric ICU was two floors up, but the ride felt long enough for another life to pass.
Sophie lay inside a clear-sided hospital crib surrounded by equipment.
A respiratory therapist held tubing in place while a nurse checked monitors.
Someone had cut away her pink sleeper.
One sock was missing.
That sock broke me more completely than anything else had.
It was white with a little stitched strawberry near the ankle.
I had bought six pairs because they had been on clearance, then complained when every load of laundry somehow produced an odd number.
Now one of them was still on her foot and I wanted the other one with a desperation that made no sense.
“Where’s her sock?”
The nurse looked up.
“What?”
“Her other sock.”
“I’m not sure.”
“I need it.”
The nurse came around the crib.
“Mrs. Mercer.”
“It was on her.”
“We can look.”
“Please don’t throw it away.”
“We won’t.”
I nodded.
Then I started crying.
Not loudly.
My face simply stopped obeying me.
The nurse gave me tissues from a box decorated with cartoon whales.
“I’m Denise.”
I wiped my nose.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“I just want her sock.”
“I understand.”
She probably did not.
Maybe she did.
Hospitals must collect strange requests from frightened people.
A sock.
A wedding ring.
A cut shirt.
A lock of hair.
Proof that the person on the bed had belonged to ordinary life an hour earlier.
Denise let me stand near Sophie’s head while the team worked.
I was allowed to touch her foot.
The skin beneath my thumb was warm now.
That mattered.
I kept my hand there until Ryan arrived.
He stopped at the entrance.
For several seconds he could not move.
“Come here,” I said.
He approached the crib slowly.
When he saw the marks across Sophie’s torso, he gripped the rail.
“Oh, God.”
I watched his face.
There are moments in a marriage when you can love someone and still wait to see what side of the room they choose.
Ryan reached through the opening and put his finger against Sophie’s palm.
Her hand did not close around it.
He bowed his head.
Behind us, Denise adjusted a line.
The monitor made a soft, repetitive tone.
“What did Vega say?”
I asked.
Ryan kept looking at Sophie.
“She asked me some questions.”
“About Linda?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And I answered them.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
I waited.
He finally looked at me.
“I told her Mom watched Sophie Tuesday.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know.”
“Did you tell her about the message?”
“She already saw it.”
“Did you tell her your mother lies when she’s cornered?”
His expression hardened.
“You think she lies all the time?”
“I think she just invented a seizure disorder for our unconscious daughter.”
“Keep your voice down.”
I laughed once.
It came out ugly.
Ryan glanced toward Denise.
She was pretending not to hear us.
“I am not protecting her,” he whispered.
“You spent your whole life protecting her.”
“Not now.”
“How do I know?”
His face changed.
That reached somewhere I had not intended.
“Because she did this to my daughter.”
The words came out so quietly that I nearly missed them.
Then he turned away from me and put both hands on the back of his neck.
For several minutes we said nothing.
A nurse from another room walked past carrying two juice boxes.
An overhead announcement asked someone from respiratory therapy to call extension 4217.
Somewhere down the hall, a child laughed.
The sound felt impossible in that place.
Ryan sat in a vinyl chair.
I stayed standing.
My phone buzzed inside my purse.
I ignored it.
It buzzed again.
Then again.
Ryan looked up.
“You should check that.”
“I don’t care.”
“It might be work.”
“I really don’t care.”
“It could be your mom.”
My mother lived three states away.
We had not told her.
I took out the phone.
Seven missed calls.
Three from a number I did not recognize.
Two from my supervisor.
Two from Linda.
A text waited beneath them.
Linda had sent it directly to me.
I did what I was taught when Ryan was little.
The next message arrived while I stared at the first.
He used to move too.
Ryan saw my face.
“What?”
I turned the screen toward him.
He took the phone.
His eyes moved over the words.
Then he sat back down very slowly.
“What does she mean?”
I asked.
He did not answer.
“Ryan.”
“I don’t know.”
“You moved too?”
“All babies move.”
“That isn’t what she means.”
He handed the phone back.
“She says weird things.”
“She said she did what she was taught when you were little.”
“I can read.”
“Did she restrain you?”
“No.”
The answer came too fast.
I watched him.
His gaze went to the crib.
“Ryan.”
“I said no.”
“You didn’t even think about it.”
“Because I would remember being tied to a bed.”
“You were a baby.”
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
The room seemed to shrink around us.
He rubbed his right wrist with his left hand.
A small, automatic movement.
I had seen him do it a thousand times when he was anxious.
At work dinners.
Before our wedding.
The night Sophie was born while we waited for the anesthesiologist.
May you like
His thumb always circled the same pale patch near the inside of his wrist.
I had once asked about it.
