Chương 8
“My physician can explain.”
“Her physician is also restricted.”
That finally unsettled my mother.
“On whose authority?”
“Her request.”
The security officer stepped between us.
“Ma’am, move back.”
My mother looked at me.
“Daniel.”
I stayed beside the stretcher.
Her face hardened.
“You’re going to allow this?”
The question was so familiar that for half a second I was fifteen again, standing in my father’s study after refusing to attend a fundraiser because I had promised a friend I would go to his mother’s funeral.
You’re going to embarrass this family over that?
My mother had always made obedience sound like the natural state of things and resistance like a childish inconvenience.
Grace shifted the baby against her chest.
He made a tiny complaining sound.
That was enough.
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m going to allow my wife to decide who comes near her.”
My mother stared at me.
Something in her face closed.
“Then you’ve made your choice.”
“No.”
I looked at Grace.
“I should have made it months ago.”
The hospital team rolled her away before my mother could answer.
I followed until a nurse stopped me at a pair of double doors.
“We need to assess both of them first.”
Grace immediately reached for me.
The nurse noticed.
“He can come once we get you settled.”
Grace shook her head.
“He comes now.”
The nurse looked at me.
“Stay out of the way.”
“I can do that.”
Grace gave me a tired look.
“No, you can’t.”
The nurse smiled despite herself.
“Then try.”
Inside the room, everything moved quickly without feeling chaotic.
A neonatal nurse checked our son beneath a warming light while Grace watched with an intensity that made it clear she would have climbed off the bed if anyone took him farther than six feet away.
Someone drew blood.
Someone checked her blood pressure again.
A resident examined her while asking about the delivery, prenatal care, medications, allergies, bleeding, pain, and whether she had experienced any injuries.
Grace answered until the question about medications came.
“I don’t know what I was given.”
The resident looked up.
“What do you mean?”
Grace’s eyes went to me, then away.
“I was given pills while confined against my will.”
The room changed.
Not dramatically.
Nobody gasped.
Nobody dropped anything.
But the nurse beside her stopped typing for a fraction of a second.
The resident’s voice became more precise.
“Who gave them to you?”
“Sometimes Dr. Mercer.”
“Your obstetrician?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes staff at the house.”
“What staff?”
“I don’t know all their names.”
“Did you consent to taking them?”
Grace stared at him.
“Sometimes they told me I couldn’t eat unless I took them.”
The nurse resumed typing.
I had to put both hands into my coat pockets because they were shaking.
The resident asked, “Were you ever physically restrained?”
Grace’s mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
I looked at her.
She did not look back.
“When?”
“The second night.”
“What kind of restraint?”
“Wrist straps.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
Her voice had gone thin.
“A few hours, maybe.”
I leaned against the wall.
The room tilted slightly.
Grace finally looked at me.
I must have shown something on my face because she said, “Don’t.”
I straightened.
“Don’t what?”
“Make this about what you’re feeling.”
The words hurt because she was right.
I nodded.
“Okay.”
The resident glanced between us and continued.
“Do you currently feel safe with your husband present?”
Grace took longer to answer than I wanted her to.
“Yes.”
The relief that came was ugly in its intensity.
I hated myself for needing it.
The resident asked whether she wanted law enforcement contacted.
“They already are.”
“Do you want hospital security notified that no information is to be released about you or the baby?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want your admission listed confidentially?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want anyone besides your husband allowed in?”
Grace hesitated.
“My sister.”
“What’s her name?”
“Claire Bennett.”
The nurse typed it.
“Anyone else?”
Grace looked at me.
“No.”
The answer excluded my entire family.
I understood.
It still landed heavily.
Our son started crying beneath the warmer.
Grace’s head snapped toward him.
“Why is he crying?”
“He’s offended by being weighed,” the neonatal nurse said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing obvious.”
“Then give him back.”
“We’re almost done.”
“Now.”
The nurse looked at Grace, then at the baby.
“Fair enough.”
She wrapped him and brought him over.
The instant Grace held him, his cry weakened into an outraged little grunt.
Grace stared at him.
“He sounds like you.”
I blinked.
“I don’t grunt.”
She looked at me.
“You absolutely grunt.”
It was the first normal sentence between us.
For half a second I could almost see our kitchen at seven in the morning, Grace drinking tea while I pretended coffee counted as breakfast.
Then she looked down at the baby again, and the distance returned.
A social worker arrived twenty minutes later.
Her name was Marisol.
She wore navy scrubs, flat shoes, and the expression of someone who had learned not to react too quickly to terrible information.
She asked me to leave while she spoke with Grace privately.
Grace watched my face.
I made myself move before she had to repeat the request.
“I’ll be outside.”
She nodded.
The door closed behind me.
The hallway was too bright.
I sat in a plastic chair beneath a television showing a muted cooking competition.
Someone on-screen was decorating a cake.
I stared at buttercream flowers while my wife told a stranger what my family had done to her.
My phone showed thirty-one missed calls.
Most were from my mother.
Seven were from people who worked for our family.
Two were from attorneys.
One was from Victor.
I called him.
He answered immediately.
“Where are you?”
“Outside the lake house with state police.”
“Why?”
“They asked me to return.”
“What did they find?”
“Enough to keep asking questions.”
“That’s not useful.”
“I know.”
Victor lowered his voice.
May you like
“There’s something you should hear before your mother explains it first.”
I looked at the closed hospital-room door.
