Chương 5
“What did the nurse say then?”
“I heard her say emergency department. Then Margaret went into the kitchen.”
“Did she tell you to call an ambulance?”
“I don’t know. Margaret came back and said they wanted me to drink water and rest.”
Ethan’s hands had gone cold.
“I believed her,” Clara said.
He looked at her.
“I believed your mother over my own body.”
Her face did not change when she said it. That was worse than anger.
“I’m sorry.”
“I believed you too.”
He swallowed.
“She’s gone,” he said.
“From the house?”
“I told her to leave.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
He knew what she meant.
The unit doors opened, and a nurse came in to check the lines. Ethan moved aside. The nurse asked Clara questions about pain and nausea, then adjusted a medication pump.
After she left, Clara said, “I can’t go back there if she has a key.”
“I’ll change the locks.”
“She’ll call.”
“I won’t answer.”
“You always answer.”
He started to deny it, then stopped.
Clara’s eyes filled but did not spill over. “You always make me be the one who says no to her. Then you stand in the middle and look hurt.”
“I know.”
“No, you say that when you want a conversation to end.”
He sat without defending himself.
The monitor beeped. In the hallway, someone rolled an oxygen tank past the room.
“I told you three days,” Clara said. “You told her two weeks.”
“I thought she could help.”
“You thought I would adjust.”
“Yes.”
Her fingers moved under his hand, not holding it, only reminding him they were there.
“I almost died in a room where she was eating dinner,” Clara said. “And you’re telling me she’s gone like that fixes the part where you brought her in.”
“It doesn’t.”
“What does?”
“I don’t know.”
For the first time since the ambulance arrived, Ethan did not reach for the answer that would calm the room. He let the silence remain uncomfortable.
Clara turned her face toward the window.
“I need you to go check on the baby.”
He stood.
At the door, he looked back. “Diane is flying in.”
Clara nodded.
“She’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”
Another nod.
“I love you.”
Clara closed her eyes.
He left without making her say it back.
Margaret had left the house by the time Rachel drove Ethan home after midnight. Her three suitcases were gone. The dining plate remained beneath the pendant lights. The chicken had hardened at the edges. Her fork rested across the rice.
The house smelled like the meal and the sour trace of spilled formula.
Rachel carried the sleeping baby upstairs while Ethan checked every room. He did not know what he was looking for. Margaret had made the guest bed. Her toiletries were gone from the bathroom. A damp washcloth lay over the edge of the tub. In the kitchen, one of her coffee mugs sat upside down beside the sink.
Clara’s phone was on the counter where Rachel had placed it.
Ethan picked it up.
The screen showed missed calls, messages, and a low-battery warning. He plugged it into a charger. When it turned on fully, notifications filled the screen. He did not open them. The device belonged to Clara, and privacy still mattered even after a hospital emergency.
A voicemail notification showed two messages from the women’s health clinic.
He stared at it.
Rachel came downstairs without her shoes.
“The baby’s in the bassinet,” she said. “He’s making goat noises.”
“He does that.”
“It’s unsettling.”
Despite himself, Ethan gave a breath that almost became a laugh.
Then he showed her the screen.
“Don’t open it without asking Clara,” Rachel said.
“What if it says what the nurse told my mother?”
“Then it will still say it tomorrow.”
“She lied.”
“Yes.”
“I need to know how much.”
Rachel folded her coat over the back of a chair. “Knowing tonight won’t change what you have to do tonight.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Feed your son in about an hour. Wash bottles. Sleep for twenty minutes if he lets you. Go back to the hospital in the morning.”
He looked toward the dining area.
“What about that?”
Rachel followed his gaze.
“Throw it away.”
The command was so ordinary that he obeyed.
He scraped the chicken, rice, and vegetables into the trash. The food came away in heavy clumps. The fork fell into the sink with a louder sound than he expected.
Rachel found the yellow discharge sheet beneath a stack of medical papers on the sofa. She flattened it on the counter.
A line had been underlined in blue ink: Call 911 for fainting, confusion, difficulty waking, or cold and clammy skin.
“Did Clara underline that?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t know.”
He searched the kitchen junk drawer for pens. Margaret always used blue rollerball pens. She disliked ballpoints because she said they made her handwriting look cheap.
There were two blue rollerballs in her burgundy handbag.
Ethan stood with one in his hand.
“This doesn’t prove anything,” Rachel said.
“I know.”
“She might have underlined it after calling.”
“I know.”
“She might have been trying to decide.”
“I know.”
Rachel touched the edge of the paper. “But she read it.”
The baby began crying upstairs.
Ethan put down the pen and went to him.
The next morning, Diane arrived at the hospital carrying a canvas tote, a neck pillow, and the expression of someone who had spent six hours practicing restraint.
She hugged Ethan in the corridor.
The hug lasted two seconds.
Then she stepped back. “Where is she?”
He took her to the intensive care waiting area and explained what the doctors had said. Diane listened without interrupting. Her gray-streaked hair was tied at the back of her neck. She wore the same black pants she traveled in every time she visited and a navy cardigan buttoned wrong at the bottom.
“Where was your mother?” she asked.
“At the house.”
May you like
“With Clara.”
“Yes.”
