When a Familiar Voice Filled the Hospital Corridor, Every Promise Changed Its Meaning

“What do you need?”

The question undid Catherine in a way sympathy would not have.

She looked down because her face had begun to change.

“I don’t know.”

Leah crossed the room and crouched beside the wheelchair. “Okay.”

“I don’t know where to go.”

“My place.”

“You have two bedrooms and three children.”

“Four, if you count Ben, which I frequently do.”

Despite herself, Catherine let out one breath that almost became a laugh.

Leah touched the baby’s blanket. “You can take our room. Ben and I will sleep in the basement. The boys will be thrilled because they think the pullout sofa is camping.”

“I can’t bring a newborn into that chaos.”

“Newborns are chaos. She’ll blend.”

“I need quiet.”

“Then we’ll make quiet.”

Catherine shook her head. “Your house is never quiet.”

“That’s true.”

Leah sat in the visitor chair, on top of Michael’s sweater, then stood immediately and pulled it from beneath her.

“Is this his?”

“Yes.”

Leah held it as if deciding whether it deserved a trash bag.

“Leave it,” Catherine said.

Leah dropped it onto the floor.

They looked at each other.

“That was childish,” Leah said.

“A little.”

“I’m not picking it up.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

Lila came in to help Catherine move from the wheelchair to the bed. The effort required more concentration than Catherine expected. Her legs trembled. Leah looked away when the robe opened at the knee, then looked back because looking away felt worse.

Once Catherine was settled, Lila helped position Eleanor for feeding. The baby’s mouth searched, found, slipped, and found again. Catherine watched the soft movement of her jaw and felt an ache spread through her chest that had nothing to do with pain.

“She knows exactly what she wants,” Leah whispered.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“She looks confident.”

“She’s three hours old.”

“Still more confident than most men in their forties.”

Catherine closed her eyes.

Leah reached for the folder of discharge papers and began reading because she could never sit beside distress without looking for a task.

“Michael said nothing happened tonight,” Catherine said.

Leah lowered the folder.

“He said that in the corridor.”

“That phrasing is doing a lot of work.”

“I know.”

“Do you think he’s sleeping with her?”

Catherine had asked herself the question so often during pregnancy that it had lost its shape. Sometimes she had imagined them in a hotel bed. Sometimes in Amber’s apartment. Sometimes nowhere physical at all, which had felt almost worse because emotional intimacy could not be blamed on alcohol or opportunity.

“I think he stopped telling me the truth a long time ago.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

Leah leaned back. “Then don’t go home until you have more.”

Catherine opened her eyes.

“We have cameras at the house.”

“Michael controls the account.”

“We both do.”

“Does he know you know the password?”

“It’s our daughter’s due date.”

Leah’s mouth tightened. “That’s bleak.”

Catherine reached for her phone.

The security application showed the front entrance of the limestone house in Lincoln Park. Rain streaked the lens. The driveway was empty.

The side camera showed nothing but wet hedges.

The garage camera had been disabled at 11:48 the previous night.

Catherine stared at the timestamp.

“Did you do that?” Leah asked.

“No.”

“Can Michael?”

“Yes.”

“Why would he?”

Catherine thought of his black sedan, the hotel valet receipt she had found in his coat pocket two weeks earlier, and the way he had laughed when she asked why he had been at the Langham on a Tuesday afternoon.

Client meeting.

You don’t trust me?

I didn’t say that.

You didn’t have to.

She closed the application.

“I want to go home,” she said.

Leah started to argue.

“I’m not staying there. I need clothes. Eleanor’s bassinet. My documents.”

“Send Ben.”

“I need to see what’s there.”

“You just gave birth.”

“I know.”

“You are not walking into that house alone.”

“I didn’t say alone.”

Leah studied her.

Catherine looked toward Daniel, who had returned to the doorway and was speaking quietly with Lila.

“I can’t be part of that,” he said before she asked. “I’m on call until seven.”

The answer embarrassed her. She had not meant to turn him into a bodyguard. In the corridor, his authority had formed a wall between her and Michael. For a few minutes she had mistaken the wall for something she could carry with her.

“Of course,” she said.

Daniel stepped farther into the room. “Security can arrange for an officer to escort you to your car. Your sister can help you collect what you need. If you believe there’s an immediate threat, call the police.”

“I don’t think he’ll hurt me.”

“That isn’t the only kind of safety.”

Leah nodded sharply. “Thank you.”

Daniel ignored her approval. “You also don’t have to leave tonight. The hospital can keep you until morning if your discharge is not complete.”

Catherine looked at the rain beyond the window.

Morning felt impossibly far away.

“I’ll stay.”

At five thirty, Leah went downstairs for coffee and returned with a paper cup of hot water because the café had closed the espresso machine for cleaning. She complained about it for three full minutes, which Catherine understood as an act of love.

Eleanor slept in the bassinet beside the bed.

Catherine read Michael’s messages without replying.

Nothing happened with Amber tonight.

I should have been there.

I made a terrible decision.

She answered because I couldn’t deal with another fight during the Carson call.

I did not hear what she sent you.

I would never speak to you that way.

Please don’t keep me from my child.

The messages became less apologetic as the minutes passed.

Daniel had no right to speak to me like that.

You embarrassed me in front of hospital staff.