Chương 4
A physician examined her eyes, mouth, ribs, abdomen, and wrists. Imaging showed no fractures and no internal bleeding. She had a mild concussion, bruised ribs, a cut that did not require stitches, and swelling that would worsen before it improved.
A hospital social worker named Denise arrived shortly after midnight. She wore purple glasses and spoke without urgency. That helped.
Denise asked whether Elena wanted to report the assault.
Elena rubbed her thumb over the edge of the hospital bracelet.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to decide this second.”
“My husband’s family owns my apartment.”
“Do you have somewhere else to stay?”
“My sister has a couch.”
“That counts.”
“My job is with them.”
Denise nodded, writing nothing for a while. “Do you have access to money?”
Elena opened her banking app on Nora’s phone. The password still worked. Their joint checking account showed a balance of $84.12.
It had contained nearly nineteen thousand dollars that morning.
She stared at the number until the screen dimmed.
“He moved it,” she said.
Denise did not look surprised.
Nora, sitting beside the bed now, muttered something vicious under her breath.
Elena checked the savings account. Zero. The investment account was no longer visible. Her individual account, which Adrian had teased her for keeping, held $1,870.
Denise asked again about the police.
This time Elena said yes.
Two officers arrived at 1:26 a.m. One was young and spoke too quickly. The other, a woman with tired eyes, asked most of the questions. Elena described the argument in the bridal suite.
She had gone upstairs to repair a loose clasp on Celia’s reception dress. Adrian followed and locked the door. He asked whether she had signed the resignation statement. She said no. He asked where she had stored the copied documents. She refused to answer.
He slapped her first.
The second blow knocked her against the vanity.
She remembered the sound of perfume bottles striking one another. She remembered Adrian saying, “You keep acting like you’re separate from us.” She remembered trying to reach the door. He caught her by the arm, shoved her down, and kicked her once when she curled around her ribs.
Then someone knocked.
Celia called through the door that the photographer was waiting. Adrian opened it only after Elena promised to say she had slipped in the bathroom.
The female officer asked whether Celia saw the assault.
“No.”
“Did she see you immediately afterward?”
Elena pictured the door opening, Celia’s face, the loose clasp forgotten in her hand.
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Elena hesitated.
“She said we were late for photographs.”
Nora made a sound beside her.
The officer asked whether Adrian had assaulted her before.
Elena stared at the hospital blanket.
“Not like this.”
It was another partial truth. He had shoved her into a kitchen counter in January. He had grabbed her throat in April, not hard enough to leave marks. He had thrown a wineglass at the wall beside her head during a trip to Napa. He had driven ninety miles an hour while she begged him to slow down.
Not like this was the phrase she had used each time to make the previous time survivable.
The officer waited.
Elena told her everything she could remember.
By dawn, Nora was asleep in a chair with her mouth open. Elena sat beneath fluorescent light holding a paper bag containing her earrings, stained handkerchief, and discharge instructions. The social worker had given her phone numbers for a domestic violence organization, legal assistance, and emergency housing.
Her own phone remained at the hotel.
A detective would contact her. The officers could request that Adrian avoid her, but without an immediate arrest or court order, the request was only a request.
Before they left, the female officer said, “Save every message. Don’t answer anything you don’t need to answer. And don’t go back to the apartment alone.”
Elena nodded.
In the parking garage, morning light seeped through the concrete openings. Nora’s car smelled of wet fabric and old coffee. A parking receipt was tucked into the cup holder, and Nora folded it into smaller and smaller squares while the engine warmed.
“I’m sorry,” Elena said.
“For what?”
“For what I said the last time we talked.”
Nora stared at the folded receipt.
“You said I couldn’t stand that you were happy.”
“I wasn’t happy.”
“I knew that.”
“I didn’t.”
Nora placed the paper square in the ashtray.
“I wanted to be wrong,” she said.
Her apartment was on the second floor of a narrow brick building above a laundromat. The living room held two bookcases, a green couch, a folding table, and a radiator that knocked every few minutes. Elena had once joked that Nora decorated like a graduate student hiding from creditors. Nora had replied that she was a graduate student hiding from creditors.
Now the room felt safer than any place Elena had lived in years.
Nora found an old T-shirt and sweatpants. Elena changed in the bathroom, moving slowly. When she removed the blush-pink dress, dried blood marked the neckline. One side seam had torn near her ribs.
She folded it by habit before realizing what she was doing.
Nora stood in the doorway holding a trash bag.
“You can throw it away,” she said.
“It belongs to Celia.”
“I don’t think she wants it back.”
Elena placed the folded dress on top of the washing machine.
“I don’t know what anyone wants.”
Nora opened her mouth, then closed it.
They slept until noon. Elena woke each time a truck passed outside. In one dream, Conrad’s watch kept clicking against a plate, over and over, while every guest in the ballroom waited for her to sign something she could not read.
At 12:14 p.m., Nora’s phone began vibrating on the coffee table.
May you like
There were twenty-three missed calls.
Adrian had left six voice messages. Conrad’s chief counsel had left two. Celia had called four times. The foundation’s human resources director had sent an email to Elena’s personal account requesting an immediate meeting regarding confidential data and workplace conduct.
