Chương 5
They were from Claire.
I’m sorry.
I didn’t know.
Please don’t believe everything he’s saying about me.
There’s something else you need to see.
I stared at the last line.
Marisol noticed my face.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
The typing indicator appeared.
Then a photograph arrived.
It was a screenshot of a conversation between Claire and Eric.
The date at the top was from six weeks earlier.
Claire had written, If she changes her mind about giving you custody, what happens?
Eric’s reply was beneath it.
She won’t.
She already signed what my mom gave her.
My hands started shaking again.
I had signed exactly three things Diane had given me during the pregnancy.
A baby shower thank-you card for Eric’s aunt.
A form for the family photographer Diane insisted on booking.
And, two months earlier, a thick stack of papers Eric had put on the kitchen table while I was nauseated and late for a prenatal appointment.
He had told me they were insurance forms.
I had signed them standing up.
Eric had been tapping his car keys against the counter and telling me we were already late.
I remembered asking why an insurance form needed my initials on almost every page.
He had kissed my forehead and said, “Because insurance companies are parasites.”
At the time, I had laughed.
Now the memory made my mouth taste metallic.
I zoomed in on Claire’s screenshot.
The conversation continued below Eric’s message.
Claire had written, She actually agreed to that?
Eric answered, She doesn’t want a custody fight.
Then Claire: That doesn’t sound like her.
Eric: You don’t know her when she gets unstable.
The word sat there on the screen.
Unstable.
Not invented this morning in a hospital corridor.
Prepared.
Repeated.
Practiced.
I handed the phone to Janet.
“I need to know what I signed.”
She read the messages without changing expression.
“Do you have copies of the documents?”
“No.”
“Could they have been hospital forms?”
“No.”
“Insurance?”
“That’s what he told me.”
Marisol was standing beside the monitor, checking the tracing.
She looked toward me.
“Where would the paperwork be now?”
“I don’t know.”
Eric handled most of our household paperwork because he was the one who enjoyed filing things into labeled folders.
I had always teased him about it.
Taxes.
Insurance.
Mortgage statements.
Car titles.
He kept everything in the home office in gray boxes with typed labels.
A tiny, absurd detail surfaced.
He used a label maker because he hated his handwriting.
I almost laughed again.
Instead I whispered, “At home.”
Janet gave me back the phone.
“Do you have anyone who can access your house?”
“Lauren has a key.”
“Good.”
I looked at the clock.
Lauren had been on the road maybe twenty minutes.
She lived forty-five minutes away without traffic.
“Can I ask her to get them?”
“You can.”
“Should I?”
Janet’s eyes rested on the screenshot.
“If you’re concerned you may have signed something you didn’t understand or were misled about, preserving whatever documents exist would be reasonable.”
That was as close to advice as she was going to come.
I called Lauren again.
She answered through the car speaker.
“I swear to God, if you are calling to tell me not to speed—”
“Go to my house first.”
Silence.
“Why?”
“I need you to find paperwork.”
“What paperwork?”
“I don’t know.”
“Rachel.”
“I signed something Eric said was insurance.”
“How long ago?”
“Two months.”
“Okay.”
“Gray filing boxes in the office.”
“I know the boxes.”
“Take pictures of anything with my signature.”
“Everything?”
“Everything from around June.”
Lauren’s breathing changed.
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Is he with you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Lauren.”
“What?”
“Don’t confront him if he comes home.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
She was absolutely planning to.
“I mean it.”
“Fine.”
“Promise.”
“I promise not to confront him unless he confronts me.”
“That is not a promise.”
“It is the best one currently available.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
Then I heard a turn signal clicking through her speaker.
“I’m heading to your place,” she said.
“Keep your phone with you.”
“And lock the door behind you.”
Another silence.
Then, softer, “Rachel, are you safe?”
The question hit harder than I expected.
“Yes.”
I looked at Marisol.
“Yes, I am.”
“Okay.”
Lauren exhaled.
“Then let me be useful.”
We hung up.
The anesthesiologist arrived several minutes later, and for a while my world contracted to instructions, positioning, antiseptic cold against my back, and the effort required not to move through pain.
Marisol stood in front of me while I curled forward.
I gripped her shoulders.
“Please don’t tell me to relax.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Everyone says relax when something terrible is happening.”
“Then I’ll say hold still.”
“That’s worse.”
“It’s more accurate.”
I breathed against her sleeve.
Behind her, I could see the whiteboard with my name written in blue marker.
RACHEL MERCER.
Under SUPPORT PERSON, Marisol had written LAUREN.
The empty space where Eric should have been hurt every time I looked at it.
The procedure was over before I could build it into something worse in my head.
Slowly, the contractions changed from knives into pressure.
I lay back and felt my whole body begin to unclench.
The relief brought exhaustion with it.
I had been awake since four in the morning.
I had eaten half a piece of toast.
I wanted to sleep.
I wanted to throw my phone through the window.
Instead I stared at the ceiling.
Claire sent another message.
I have more screenshots if you want them.
I typed, Send everything.
The answer came almost immediately.
Okay.
Then another message.
I’m leaving the hospital.
I stared at that one.
Where is Eric?
Typing dots appeared.
Gone.
Security made him leave the maternity floor.
His mom is still downstairs arguing.
That sounded exactly like Diane.
I wrote, Why are you helping me?
Claire took nearly a minute to answer.
May you like
Because I think he lied to both of us.
I read it twice.
