Chương 2
“I just don’t want Daniel taking them.”
Daniel stared at me.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means she wants her folder,” Judge Hanley said.
The bailiff placed it against my chest.
I held it with both hands.
My fingers barely worked.
Outside the courtroom, the hallway smelled like floor wax and burnt coffee.
Two families waiting for other hearings moved aside as the stretcher passed.
A little boy held a plastic dinosaur against his mother’s coat and watched me with enormous eyes.
I looked away.
The courthouse doors opened.
September sunlight hit my face.
For several seconds, it was the brightest thing I had ever seen.
Colonel Carter followed us outside.
One paramedic looked at him.
“Doctor, you family?”
“No.”
Daniel appeared behind him.
“I am.”
Carter turned.
“Then tell them her medical history.”
Daniel shoved his hands into his pockets.
“She gets migraines.”
“Medication?”
“I don’t know.”
“Previous diagnoses?”
“She’s seen a bunch of doctors.”
“Which hospitals?”
“I don’t keep track of every little thing she does.”
The paramedic’s expression became flat.
Carter said nothing.
He did not need to.
Daniel noticed.
“You don’t know what our marriage is like.”
“No,” Carter said.
“I know what your answers sound like.”
The ambulance doors stood open behind me.
Daniel’s face reddened.
“You’re way out of line.”
“Possibly.”
Carter reached into his breast pocket, removed a card, and handed it to the paramedic.
“But if the emergency department wants to know what I observed before you arrived, they can call me.”
The paramedic tucked the card away.
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“This is insane.”
I closed my eyes.
There had been years when that sentence could rearrange reality for me.
If Daniel called something insane, I checked myself.
If he called something dramatic, I lowered my voice.
If he called something selfish, I apologized.
If he called a memory wrong, I eventually stopped mentioning it.
The ambulance doors began to close.
Daniel stepped forward.
“Claire, where’s Lily?”
My eyes opened.
The question cut through everything.
“She’s at school.”
“Who’s picking her up?”
I looked at the clock mounted above the courthouse entrance.
It was 1:47.
School dismissed at 2:40.
My stomach dropped.
Daniel was scheduled to take Lily after the hearing, but I had not told him I wanted to change the arrangement until the judge ruled.
Now I was being taken to a hospital, and Daniel still had temporary joint custody.
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“Don’t talk to her about this.”
His jaw tightened.
“I’m her father.”
“Don’t tell her I collapsed because I was upset.”
He stared at me.
That was exactly what he had intended to say.
“Claire, she already worries about you too much.”
“Because you tell her to.”
His face hardened.
The paramedic reached for the door.
Daniel caught the edge.
“I have a right to know where my daughter is.”
“She’s at school,” I said.
“And she’s not your witness.”
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then the paramedic pulled the door shut between us.
The siren started as we left the courthouse.
I hated sirens.
They made emergencies sound theatrical even when the person inside the ambulance was mostly worried about whether her daughter had remembered her purple lunchbox.
The paramedic placed an oxygen cannula beneath my nose and checked my blood pressure again.
His partner started an IV.
“Any chance you’re pregnant?”
“No.”
“Any blood thinners?”
“No.”
“Recent infection?”
“I had something in June.”
“What kind of something?”
“Fever, sore throat, swollen glands.”
“Tested for anything?”
I stared at the ceiling.
“I couldn’t afford another urgent-care bill.”
He glanced at me.
I immediately regretted saying it.
Not because it was untrue.
Because I had spent the entire morning listening to Daniel’s attorney describe our finances as though we were two equally irresponsible adults who had simply failed to budget.
The truth was messier.
Daniel earned almost three times what I did.
The mortgage came from our joint account.
So did Lily’s health insurance.
Then, four months after he moved into his mother’s guesthouse, he stopped depositing his paycheck there.
Bills that used to disappear automatically began arriving with red lettering.
He called it financial separation.
I called the electric company and asked for twelve extra days.
The paramedic adjusted the IV tubing.
“Which hospital do you normally use?”
“St. Agnes.”
He looked at his partner.
“Ten minutes.”
My phone vibrated inside my handbag.
Once.
Then again.
Then continuously.
I knew without looking.
Daniel.
Patricia.
Maybe the school.
Maybe my sister, Rachel, whom I had not called because Rachel would have flown in from Denver, insulted Daniel in the courthouse hallway, and probably been arrested before lunch.
The phone stopped.
Then rang again.
“Want me to get that?” the paramedic asked.
“No.”
A few seconds passed.
“Yes.”
He found the phone and handed it to me.
Fourteen notifications covered the screen.
Daniel had sent six messages.
Patricia had sent three.
The school had called twice.
Then I saw the name beneath them.
LILY’S SCHOOL.
My hand shook so badly I nearly dropped the phone.
I called back.
“Maple Ridge Elementary.”
“This is Claire Whitaker.”
There was a pause.
“Mrs. Whitaker, this is Denise in the front office.”
Her voice became careful.
“Are you all right?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.”
That one syllable contained more kindness than anything I had heard in court all morning.
“I’m being taken to the hospital.”
“I understand.”
“Is Lily okay?”
Another pause.
My heart began beating harder.
“Denise?”
“Lily is safe.”
The phrase parents were supposed to find reassuring had exactly the opposite effect.
“What happened?”
“Her father’s mother called.”
I sat up too quickly.
The paramedic pressed my shoulder down.
“What did Patricia say?”
“She said there had been an incident at court and that Mr. Whitaker would be collecting Lily.”
My mouth went dry.
“That’s not the problem.”
Denise lowered her voice.
May you like
“She also asked us not to discuss your medical emergency with Lily because, according to her, you had staged it during the hearing.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
