Chương 5
Rachel read it twice.
“Handling.”
Leah looked up.
“What?”
“They handled her.”
“Rachel.”
“Like luggage.”
Leah closed the laptop.
“Don’t read statements today.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Help me reconstruct what happened.”
So Rachel did.
It was harder than she expected.
Memory did not behave like evidence.
She remembered the smell of antiseptic.
She remembered Daniel’s hand around hers during a contraction.
She remembered Margaret arriving with a suitcase Rachel had specifically asked her not to bring because the hospital provided everything.
She remembered Dr. Kessler saying the baby might need respiratory support because labor had begun early.
She remembered asking Daniel to tell Margaret to leave the room.
He had said, “Not now.”
Rachel had whispered, “Then when?”
Later there had been pain, then blood, then the operating room.
She remembered the cry.
After that, fragments.
A nurse.
Daniel’s shirt cuff.
A clock.
Someone removing something from her finger.
The pulse monitor.
Daniel saying, “Don’t try to sit up.”
Then the next morning.
His face.
The sentence.
She didn’t make it.
Rachel stopped talking.
Leah waited.
“I believed him immediately.”
“Of course.”
“No. I argued about hearing her cry. But I believed the rest.”
She stood and walked to the window.
Below them, traffic moved through the intersection. A man in a delivery uniform pushed a hand truck stacked with boxes. Someone honked.
“I thought the argument was about whether I heard her before she died.”
Leah said nothing.
“I never considered that he was lying about the death.”
“Most people don’t fact-check the person holding their hand after surgery.”
Rachel pressed her fingertips to the glass.
“When did he take her?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Where?”
“We don’t know.”
“Who helped?”
“We have names to ask.”
Rachel turned around.
“I need more than questions.”
“You’ll get more.”
“When?”
“I can’t promise that.”
Rachel’s temper flared.
“My child slept somewhere for six weeks while I sat on the floor of an empty nursery.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Leah leaned back.
“No. I don’t. But being angry at me won’t make hospital counsel answer faster.”
Rachel hated her for approximately four seconds.
Then she sat down.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t waste an apology on that.”
The first useful document came from somewhere Rachel had not thought to look.
The state newborn screening program.
At 10:06 that morning, Leah received confirmation that a blood sample for Evelyn had been collected thirty hours after birth.
Thirty hours.
Rachel read the time twice.
The funeral planning had started before that sample was taken.
Margaret had texted Rachel’s mother about flower preferences while Evelyn was alive somewhere under medical care.
Rachel went to the bathroom and locked the door.
She sat on the closed toilet seat.
No crying came.
Her body seemed finished with dramatic reactions.
She stared at a dent in the metal trash can near the sink and thought, absurdly, that someone should replace it.
Then she remembered Daniel sitting beside her bed while Margaret stood near the window discussing the funeral home.
Evelyn had been alive.
Perhaps being fed.
Perhaps crying.
Perhaps sleeping under hospital lights.
Rachel had been six floors away.
A knock came at the door.
“Rachel?”
“I’m fine.”
Leah said, “That’s a suspiciously fast answer.”
Rachel almost smiled.
It vanished.
“I’m coming out.”
Daniel agreed to meet that afternoon.
Leah objected.
Rachel insisted.
They compromised on a private conference room in Leah’s building with both lawyers present and no Margaret.
Daniel arrived carrying nothing.
Rachel noticed that first.
No baby.
Her chest tightened.
“Where is she?”
“With a pediatric nurse at the house.”
“Your mother’s house?”
“No. Ours.”
“It hasn’t been ours for six weeks.”
Daniel looked down.
His attorney, Martin Cole, began, “Before we start—”
Rachel raised a hand.
“I want him to answer.”
Martin stopped.
Daniel sat across from her.
Without the black suit jacket he had worn the day before, he looked less like the man from the viral video and more like the person Rachel knew. That frightened her more than she expected.
He rubbed his thumb against the side of his index finger.
He always did that when he was ashamed.
Rachel had once found it endearing.
“Tell me where she went after the delivery.”
Daniel looked at Martin.
“Daniel,” Rachel said.
His eyes came back to her.
“St. Catherine transferred her to a private neonatal unit at Hawthorne Children’s.”
“Why?”
“She was having trouble breathing.”
“Why wasn’t I told?”
Daniel swallowed.
“Mom said if you knew she was unstable medically, you’d insist on going with her.”
Rachel stared.
“I was unconscious.”
“I know.”
“So what were you afraid I would do?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a lie.”
Daniel rubbed his fingers again.
Martin said quietly, “Answer as accurately as you can.”
Daniel nodded.
“You had told me you were leaving.”
Rachel felt something inside her become very still.
“Before I went into labor.”
“Yes.”
“I said I wanted a separation.”
“Yes.”
“Because you went through my phone.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“Because you were talking to a divorce lawyer.”
“That was why I wanted a separation.”
“I panicked.”
Rachel waited.
Daniel looked at the table.
“Mom kept saying once you were discharged, you’d take the baby and disappear.”
“I told you I was moving to my sister’s apartment fifteen minutes away.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The room stayed quiet.
Leah did not interrupt.
Rachel said, “Keep going.”
“When Evelyn was transferred, your blood pressure crashed again. They took you back in. Mom spoke with Dr. Kessler.”
“What did they decide?”
“That the baby should stay at Hawthorne and that you shouldn’t be moved.”
“That part makes medical sense.”
“Yes.”
“What happened next?”
Daniel breathed through his nose.
“Mom said we needed time.”
“For what?”
“To figure out custody.”
Rachel stared at him.
“You took advantage of me nearly bleeding to death so you could get a head start on custody.”
“No.”
“What word would you use?”
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“I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“That’s not a word.”
