Chương 9
“I meant about the firearm.”
“I know.”
A faint tiredness softened her face.
“Trauma can make memory arrive out of order.”
She stood.
“Don’t force it.”
After she left, Alex paced three steps one way and three steps back.
“You gave him five thousand dollars because he put a gun on his belt.”
“I know what happened.”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“No, you’re trying to make it make sense.”
He stopped.
“Doesn’t it?”
“No.”
He opened his mouth.
I cut him off.
“That’s the point.”
The anger left his face.
He sat down again.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
A cart squeaked somewhere in the hallway.
Someone laughed at the nurses’ station.
A baby cried faintly behind another door.
Life continued with insulting normality.
Alex picked up a disposable cup from the windowsill.
“This coffee is terrible.”
“You bought coffee?”
“Machine.”
“You hate machine coffee.”
“I panicked.”
I looked at him.
He shrugged.
“It seemed like a coffee situation.”
I almost smiled.
Then my phone vibrated in my mind even though the actual phone was sitting broken in an evidence bag somewhere.
I remembered the little buzz of incoming messages.
Victor’s name.
Always Victor’s name.
“You said the police have my phone.”
“Yeah.”
“Can they see deleted messages?”
“Maybe.”
“Alex.”
“I genuinely don’t know.”
“I deleted things.”
He stared at me.
“What things?”
“Messages.”
“From him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because sometimes after we fought I’d read them over and over.”
My throat tightened.
“I started feeling crazy.”
He looked down at his coffee.
“So I deleted them.”
“That doesn’t make you crazy.”
“Please don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn everything into something supportive.”
He looked mildly offended.
“I can be supportive.”
“You’re terrible at it.”
“I’m improving.”
“You just told a hospital employee that babies have bones like that made you qualified for obstetrics.”
“That was medically accurate.”
This time I did laugh.
It hurt again, but not enough to stop me.
Alex smiled for half a second.
Then he said, “There might be backups.”
“What?”
“Your messages.”
I looked at him.
“If your phone backed up to the cloud or if you have an old tablet or laptop synced.”
The thought moved through me slowly.
“We have an iPad.”
“Where?”
“At home.”
His face hardened.
“Then we don’t go get it.”
“My work laptop might have some messages.”
“Where is that?”
“At the clinic.”
“You still have access?”
“I’m on leave.”
“But your account?”
“I think so.”
“We can deal with that later.”
I stared toward the window.
Later.
The word was beginning to feel like a country I had no map for.
A nurse came in to check the monitor and told us the contractions were settling.
“Does that mean I can go?”
“Not yet.”
She adjusted one of the sensors.
“Dr. Patel wants a little more observation.”
Alex asked, “How much is a little?”
The nurse smiled.
“In hospital language, that could be awhile.”
He sighed.
“I knew you were going to say that.”
She left.
I looked at my hands.
They were shaking again.
“What if he didn’t take the gun?”
Alex said nothing.
“What if someone else moved it?”
“Maybe.”
“Nora was there.”
“She was downstairs.”
“You don’t know that for every minute.”
“Neither do you.”
I frowned.
He softened his voice.
“I’m not saying she did.”
“Helena hates me.”
“That I noticed.”
“Raúl could’ve moved it.”
“For what reason?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then don’t solve the gun right now.”
I hated that he sounded like Denise.
“I need to know.”
“No, you want to know.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Needing makes it feel like you can’t breathe until you have the answer.”
I stared at him.
He looked embarrassed.
“What?”
“Where did that come from?”
“My therapist.”
“You have a therapist?”
“Apparently this morning is full of revelations.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
“You never told me.”
“You never asked.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No.”
He looked at the coffee.
“It isn’t.”
Something in his voice made me stop.
“When?”
“After I got out.”
“The Marines?”
He nodded.
“Nightmares?”
“Some.”
I waited.
He scratched at the cardboard sleeve around his cup.
“Mostly anger.”
I had always assumed Alex came home intact because he looked intact.
Broad shoulders.
Steady job.
Dry jokes.
A truck he washed every Sunday whether it needed it or not.
I had done to him, in a different way, what everyone had done to me.
I had mistaken functioning for being fine.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He gave me a look.
The irony landed between us.
“Okay.”
“Yeah.”
Neither of us needed to say more.
An hour later, Dr. Patel returned and told me the fetal monitoring remained reassuring.
The tightening had decreased.
There was no bleeding.
My thigh injury looked painful but not structurally serious.
They wanted me to rest, hydrate, return immediately for specific symptoms, and follow up with my obstetrician.
I listened carefully.
For once, every instruction felt sacred.
Before discharge, Denise came back with paperwork and helped me make a plan for going to Alex’s apartment.
She suggested changing passwords.
Turning off shared location services.
Contacting my bank.
Reviewing joint accounts.
Telling my employer enough to prevent Victor from obtaining information about me.
Each item sounded ordinary.
Each item also felt like cutting another thread connecting me to my own life.
“Can I access the house?”
I asked.
“Eventually, safely.”
“I need clothes.”
“We can talk to police about a civil standby or other safe retrieval options.”
“My prenatal records are there.”
“Most of those may be accessible through your provider.”
“My mother’s jewelry.”
Alex said, “Forget the jewelry.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
He stopped.
Denise watched us.
I said, “It’s not expensive.”
“Then why risk it?”
“Because it was hers.”
Alex’s face softened.
Our mother had died three years earlier from ovarian cancer.
Victor had been wonderful during the first six months of her illness.
He brought groceries.
May you like
He fixed her leaking faucet.
He sat beside her during chemotherapy when I had to work.
