Chương 6
I answered everything.
When I got to the money, Officer Grant glanced up.
“Eighteen thousand dollars?”
“Yes.”
“They wanted you to give it to your sister?”
“My mother did.”
“Your sister knew about the request?”
“I believe so.”
“Did she ask you directly?”
“Not until today.”
“What did she say?”
I closed my eyes for a second.
“That they were in a tighter position.”
Officer Lewis asked, “Did anyone record the incident?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded.
“One witness told us there may have been a phone recording.”
I opened my eyes.
“Who?”
“We’re following up.”
My heartbeat seemed louder than the fetal monitor.
“A recording of what?”
“Potentially the argument and physical contact.”
Evan leaned forward.
“Does Patricia know?”
Officer Lewis looked at him.
“We’re not discussing witness statements in detail.”
That answer was enough.
Someone had filmed it.
At a baby shower.
Of course someone had.
Half the family had spent the afternoon taking pictures of cupcakes and balloons.
I thought about all the phones raised earlier while Brianna opened gifts.
Any one of them might have still been recording.
Officer Lewis turned back to me.
“Do you want to pursue charges if the evidence supports them?”
The room went silent.
I heard a cart squeak past in the hallway.
A woman somewhere nearby laughed at something.
An overhead speaker called a respiratory therapist to another floor.
Life continued with astonishing indifference.
I looked at my husband.
He did not answer for me.
I looked at the officers.
“Yes.”
Officer Grant wrote something down.
The decision felt less dramatic than I expected.
No thunder.
No collapse.
Just ink moving across paper.
Officer Lewis nodded.
“We’ll document that.”
“Is she under arrest?”
“Not at this moment.”
Relief and disappointment arrived together.
I hated myself a little for both.
“What happens now?”
“We continue the investigation.”
He paused.
“There was significant disagreement among people at the residence about what happened.”
I laughed once.
“Of course there was.”
“Some witnesses described an intentional slap.”
“Some?”
“Yes.”
“What did the others say?”
He closed the notebook.
“I can tell you that your father characterized it as accidental contact during an argument.”
My stomach tightened.
Not from a contraction this time.
“He said accidental?”
“Yes.”
I stared at the wall.
My father had watched it happen.
He had been close enough to see the expression on Mom’s face before her hand moved.
He had watched me fall.
He had watched me climb out of the pool.
And now he was calling it accidental.
Evan squeezed my hand.
Officer Lewis continued carefully.
“Your sister said she did not have a clear view.”
I turned my face toward him.
“She was standing directly behind my mother.”
“I understand.”
“No, I mean directly behind her.”
He gave a small nod.
“I’ve noted your statement.”
Something inside me shifted again.
The slap had hurt.
The laughter had hurt.
But those were reactions.
Ugly, immediate, impulsive.
This was different.
Dad and Brianna had been given time.
Enough time for the ambulance to leave.
Enough time for police to arrive.
Enough time to decide what kind of people they wanted to be when reality became inconvenient.
They had chosen.
Officer Lewis handed me a card with a case number.
“We may contact you again.”
“Okay.”
“Hospital security has been informed that there is a family conflict.”
“Thank you.”
After the officers left, Evan remained standing.
I looked at him.
“Say it.”
“What?”
“You want to say something.”
He exhaled through his nose.
“I want to say a lot of things.”
“Pick one.”
He looked toward the closed door.
“Your dad lied to the police.”
“Yes.”
“And Brianna says she didn’t see anything.”
“Yes.”
He sat back down.
“You’re not going back there.”
I should have objected to the phrasing.
I should have told him I was an adult and he did not get to decide where I went.
Instead, I said, “No.”
My phone began buzzing again on the windowsill.
Evan reached for it.
“Want me to turn it off?”
“Who is it?”
He looked at the screen.
“Your dad.”
I held out my hand.
Evan hesitated, then gave me the phone.
There were four missed calls.
A voicemail notification waited underneath them.
I tapped it.
My father’s voice filled the room.
“Savannah, call me back.”
He sounded exhausted.
Not frightened.
Not sorry.
“Your mother is very upset, and the police are making this into something it isn’t.”
I looked at Evan.
He stared at the phone.
Dad continued.
“You know how she gets when she feels cornered.”
A pause.
Then came the sentence that finally broke whatever was left.
“You need to fix this before your mother ends up in real trouble.”
The message ended.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then my abdomen tightened hard beneath the monitoring bands.
I sucked in a breath.
Evan stood.
“What is it?”
“Contraction.”
The pressure kept building.
Stronger than before.
I gripped the bedrail.
The monitor began printing faster.
A nurse entered almost immediately.
“Okay, Savannah, breathe through it.”
“I am.”
Another warm trickle soaked the pad beneath me.
The nurse checked the monitor.
Then she pressed the call button.
“Could you page Dr. Patel?”
Evan’s face went pale.
“What’s happening?”
The nurse did not answer him right away.
She looked at me instead.
“How much pressure are you feeling?”
“A lot.”
“Low pressure?”
“Yes.”
She pulled on gloves.
“Savannah, I need to check you again.”
The contraction released, leaving me shaking.
My father’s voicemail still sat open on my phone.
Fix this.
Even now.
Even here.
I turned the screen off and handed the phone to Evan.
“Delete the voicemail?”
he asked.
“No.”
I looked at the case number on the officer’s card.
“Save everything.”
Dr. Patel came in less than two minutes later, followed by the resident and another nurse carrying a tray.
She examined me again while I stared at a crack in the ceiling tile above the bed.
May you like
“You’ve changed.”
My fingers tightened around Evan’s hand.
