Chương 3
“You do not have to make a police report today,” she said. “You do not have to go home with anyone you don’t want to go home with. You can talk privately with an advocate. You can also say no to all of that. But I need an honest answer about the injuries because it affects how we examine you and the baby.”
Olivia stared at the green line moving across the monitor.
“It was an argument.”
Margaret’s fingers closed around the edge of her cap.
The nurse waited.
“He didn’t mean to hit my stomach.”
Margaret lifted her head.
Olivia spoke faster. “He didn’t. He grabbed me. I turned. The dresser was behind me.”
“When was that?”
“Tuesday.”
“And the other bruises?”
Olivia pulled the cardigan closed.
The nurse’s voice remained gentle. “Are they from Tuesday too?”
“No.”
Margaret felt a pressure in her chest that made the room seem smaller.
Olivia rubbed her thumb against a loose thread in the blanket. “He gets angry. It isn’t all the time.”
The nurse did not nod or offer sympathy too quickly. “Has he ever strangled you?”
“No.”
“Threatened you with a weapon?”
“No.”
“Threatened the pregnancy?”
Olivia hesitated.
Margaret leaned forward.
“He said stress can make a baby die,” Olivia whispered. “He said if I kept provoking him, whatever happened would be on me.”
The monitor continued its steady gallop.
The nurse asked, “Do you believe he might seriously hurt you?”
Olivia covered her face.
“I don’t know.”
The answer frightened Margaret more than yes would have.
The examinations took several hours. The baby appeared stable, though the physician wanted Olivia observed overnight because of tenderness near her abdomen and the timing of the injuries. A social worker spoke with Olivia alone. A detective asked whether she wanted to give a statement. Olivia declined.
Ethan was instructed to leave the hospital. He did not argue in the corridor, where cameras and witnesses surrounded him. Instead, he sent messages.
The first said, I love you. I am sorry you are scared.
The second said, Tell them about your panic attacks before this gets out of hand.
The third said, My command will be notified if you make allegations. You know what that means for us.
The fourth said, Mom says Margaret has been filling your head with things for years.
Olivia showed Margaret only the first.
“He apologized,” she said.
“For what?”
“For upsetting me.”
“That is not what he wrote.”
“You can see the words.”
“I can.”
Olivia locked the screen. “Then don’t make them mean something else.”
Margaret sat back.
Her instinct was to dismantle Ethan’s language, to identify the evasion and explain it as if Olivia were a lieutenant missing a threat assessment. She knew how to command a room and how to define a problem so other people could act. She had never been good at sitting beside pain she could not organize.
“Do you want me to stop talking?” she asked.
Olivia looked surprised.
“For a little while.”
“All right.”
They sat without speaking. Behind the curtain, a cart squeaked past. Someone down the hall laughed, then apologized for laughing. The hospital television showed a cooking competition with the sound muted. Margaret watched a contestant carry a cake across a bright studio kitchen and wondered how many people were awake in Boston at that moment worrying about things that would never make anyone else’s news.
After several minutes, Olivia said, “You’re still making that face.”
“What face?”
“The one you made when recruits disappointed you.”
“I never trained recruits.”
“You know what I mean.”
Margaret looked down at the ribbons on her uniform. “I’m not disappointed in you.”
“You are.”
“I am angry.”
“At me.”
“No.”
“You always say no like that when the true answer is complicated.”
The accuracy of it stung.
Margaret placed her cap on the empty chair. “I am angry that you were hurt. I am angry that I didn’t know. I am angry that he is in the waiting room thinking about his career while you are afraid someone will take your child. Some of that anger is probably landing where it shouldn’t.”
Olivia’s eyes remained on the monitor. “I knew you’d take over.”
“I called an ambulance.”
“You called the police.”
“There were injuries.”
“You didn’t ask what I wanted.”
“I asked who did it.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Margaret’s first response rose sharply and died behind her teeth. Olivia was right, though admitting it did not make the decision feel wrong.
“What did you want?” Margaret asked.
“I wanted you to come.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know.”
Margaret waited.
“I thought if you saw me, maybe I wouldn’t have to say it.”
A contraction of pain crossed Olivia’s face, though the monitor did not show labor. She turned toward the wall.
Margaret reached for her hand, then stopped before touching it. “May I?”
Olivia nodded.
Her fingers were cold.
Near midnight, Diane appeared outside the room carrying Olivia’s overnight bag. The nurse would not admit her without permission. Olivia considered it for almost a minute before saying yes.
Diane entered alone. She had changed nothing about her appearance except her lipstick, which had faded. She placed the bag on a chair and removed a folded robe, a toothbrush, a hairbrush, and Olivia’s blue slippers.
“I brought the things you like,” she said.
Olivia’s lower lip trembled.
Diane kissed her forehead. “My poor girl.”
Margaret stood near the window.
Diane looked at the fetal monitor. “Is she all right?”
“The baby is stable,” Olivia said.
“Thank God.”
Diane rested her hand on Olivia’s blanket, careful not to touch the bruises. “Ethan has gone back to the house. The police advised him not to contact you tonight.”
“He has contacted me.”
Diane closed her eyes briefly. “He is frightened.”
“So am I.”
“I know.”
“No,” Olivia said. “You know he is frightened.”
Diane looked toward Margaret as if the sentence had been planted.
May you like
Margaret said nothing.
Diane sat. “Ethan told the officers you slipped after the argument.”
