Chương 2
“Eleanor June Harrison,” she said.
Daniel pressed the elevator button.
“Eleanor,” he repeated. “That suits her.”
The elevator opened. Inside, a young father in gray sweatpants held two coffees and a paper bag against his chest. He looked at Catherine, then at the newborn, and smiled automatically. The smile faltered when he noticed her expression.
“Congratulations,” he said anyway.
“Thank you,” Catherine replied.
He stepped out and hurried toward the secured doors, calling softly to someone on his phone.
Daniel guided the wheelchair into the elevator.
The doors closed.
Catherine stared at the brushed metal seam between them and said, “Did everyone hear it?”
“Some people did.”
“The nurses?”
“Probably.”
“The security officer?”
“Yes.”
She nodded once. The inside of the elevator smelled faintly of coffee and disinfectant.
“Good,” she said.
Daniel did not answer.
Her postpartum room looked as though she had left it years earlier instead of twenty minutes ago. A water cup stood on the tray table with a bent straw. Two unopened packets of crackers lay beside a folder of discharge instructions. The visitor chair by the window still held Michael’s folded charcoal sweater, the one Catherine had packed because he always complained hospitals were cold.
He had never worn it.
Daniel wheeled her beside the bed and locked the brakes again.
A nurse named Lila came in behind them. She had been with Catherine through the worst hour of labor, when the anesthesiologist was delayed and every contraction seemed to divide her body from the inside. Lila’s eyes moved over Catherine’s face with professional speed.
“Do you want me to call security and restrict your visitor list?”
Catherine looked at the sweater.
“Yes.”
“Michael Harrison?”
“And Amber Collins.”
Lila wrote the names on a small clipboard.
“Anyone you want added?”
“My sister. Leah Bennett.”
“Anyone else?”
Catherine looked at Daniel. “No.”
Lila’s pen paused. “Your discharge paperwork currently lists your husband as the person taking you home.”
“He isn’t.”
“All right. We can update that.”
“How soon can I leave?”
“Your vitals have been stable, and Eleanor is doing well. The pediatrician still needs to sign off. We also need to make sure you have somewhere safe to recover and someone available to help you.”
“I have a home.”
Lila’s expression did not change. “Do you feel safe going there?”
The question was simple. Catherine disliked how long it took to answer.
Michael had never struck her. He had never thrown anything, punched a wall, blocked a door, or threatened her. He had also never imagined that one day she might answer that question with anything but immediate certainty.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Lila nodded as if uncertainty were an acceptable fact rather than a failure.
“We don’t need to solve everything right now. We’ll call your sister.”
Catherine reached for her phone on the tray table.
The screen showed thirty-two missed calls.
Twenty-four were from Michael.
Four were from Leah.
Two were from Evelyn Harrison, Michael’s mother.
One was from Amber.
One came from an unknown number with a Chicago area code.
There were also messages. The newest from Michael read: Please don’t make decisions while you’re exhausted.
The sentence sat beneath a photograph Catherine had sent him at 2:14 that morning: her bare knees under a hospital blanket, Daniel’s gloved hand adjusting a monitor, and the caption They’re starting the induction now. Please come.
Michael had responded at 2:22.
I’m handling something. You’re in good hands.
At 2:51, Catherine had written: They say it may happen quickly.
At 3:03: Michael answer me.
At 3:06: I’m scared.
Then at 3:07, the voice message had arrived.
Your dramatic labor situation isn’t his responsibility tonight.
Catherine had played it once while another contraction built. She had stared at the blue audio line until Lila took the phone from her hand and placed it facedown.
An hour later, when Daniel said the baby’s heart rate was dropping, Catherine stopped asking whether Michael was coming.
She forwarded the recording to Leah at 5:12.
She had not known how it would later begin playing from Michael’s phone in the corridor. The explanation was probably simple. Amber had been holding the device when Catherine’s message thread opened. Perhaps she had touched the screen. Perhaps Michael had demanded to hear it and she had tried to prove there was nothing to hear.
Whatever the cause, the phone had said the truth aloud when all four of them were present.
Catherine opened Michael’s newest message.
Please let me meet my daughter.
Her thumbs hovered over the screen.
She typed: Her name is Eleanor.
The reply appeared almost at once.
Eleanor June?
Catherine stared at those two words. He remembered. The fact should not have mattered. It did.
Yes.
Three dots appeared, disappeared, then returned.
Please let me see her.
Catherine locked the phone without answering.
Leah arrived forty minutes later in leggings, snow boots, and an oversized camel coat thrown over her pajamas. Though it was late April, Chicago had offered three seasons in twelve hours. Rain shone on her dark hair. She carried a canvas grocery bag stuffed with a phone charger, a clean T-shirt, two bananas, and a bottle of sparkling water.
“What happened?” she asked before the door had fully closed. “No, wait. I know what happened. I heard the message. I mean, what happened after?”
Catherine looked at Eleanor, who had begun making small rooting movements against the blanket.
“Michael came.”
“Of course he came after the work was finished.”
“Amber was with him.”
Leah stopped taking things out of the bag.
“She came to the hospital?”
“She was holding his phone.”
For several seconds, Leah made no sound. Then she placed the bananas on the windowsill with unusual care.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m going to make him wish I killed him.”
May you like
“Not tonight.”
Leah turned around. She and Catherine shared the same brown eyes, though Leah’s were usually warmer and quicker to give away her opinion. At that moment they looked almost black.
