Chapter 7: What the Hospital Found
The nurse's name was Carol.
She was broad-shouldered and unhurried and she asked me every question twice — once for the form and once, I think, just to make sure I had really heard myself say it out loud.
"When was your last prenatal appointment with a licensed OB-GYN?"
"Week twenty-one."
She wrote it down.
"And since then?"
"A man named Marsh.
He came to the house.
He never gave me paperwork."
"Did he perform any procedures?"
"He checked my pulse.
He listened to the heartbeat.
He gave me supplements — I don't know what they were.
I stopped taking them after week twenty-five."
Carol stopped writing.
She looked at me over the top of her clipboard.
"You stopped taking them."
"I didn't know what they were.
He wouldn't tell me."
She set the clipboard on the counter and picked up the phone on the wall.
She spoke quietly, her back to me, and I heard two words clearly: *attending* and *now.*
The OB who came in was younger than I expected.
Dr.
Yuen.
She shook my hand before she did anything else, which made me want to cry, and I didn't understand why until later — it was the first time anyone had shaken my hand in ten weeks.
The ultrasound took twenty minutes.
Dr.
Yuen narrated as she went, which I also hadn't expected.
She told me the position, the heart rate, the estimated weight.
She told me the placenta looked healthy.
She told me the fluid levels were good.
She told me my daughter was fine.
I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth and held it there.
"You're going to need monitoring," Dr.
Yuen said.
"I want to keep you for at least twenty-four hours.
Your blood pressure is high and I want to understand why before we make any other decisions." She paused.
"Is there someone we should call?"
"There's a woman named Grace Alderton," I said.
"She's a paralegal.
She's expecting to hear from me."
Dr.
Yuen looked at Renata, who was standing near the door.
"Already on it," Renata said.
"Good." Dr.
Yuen pulled a stool close and sat down so she was level with me.
"I also need to tell you something, and I want you to hear it clearly.
The supplements you described — the ones you stopped taking — I'm going to order a blood panel.
If those supplements were anything other than standard prenatal vitamins, I want it documented." She held my gaze.
"Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
"You think they were giving me something."
"I think we need to know what was in your system.
And I think you were right to stop taking them."
I looked at the ultrasound image still frozen on the screen.
My daughter's profile.
Her nose.
The curve of her chin.
"She's really okay?" I said.
"She's really okay."
I nodded.
I kept nodding for longer than I meant to.
Carol came back in with a warm blanket and draped it over my legs without being asked.
It was such a small thing.
I felt it for a long time after.
Grace arrived forty minutes later.
She came in with a leather folder under her arm and sat down in the chair beside the bed and opened it without preamble.
"The emergency protective order was filed this morning at seven," she said.
"Daniel Holt and Patricia Holt are currently prohibited from coming within five hundred feet of you or this facility." She looked up.
"Warren Gill was taken in for questioning an hour ago."
I stared at her.
"The recordings," she said.
"Donna's audio from Friday night.
Your recordings from the attic.
Dr.
Marsh's visit.
All of it." She closed the folder.
"It's a lot, and it's clear."
"What happens now?"
"Now you rest.
You let the doctors do their job.
And tomorrow morning, you give a formal statement." She looked at me steadily.
"You've already done the hard part.
Everything from here is just paperwork."
I looked at the window.
Morning light was coming through the blinds in thin, flat lines.
"He'll fight it," I said.
"Daniel.
He'll say I was unstable.
They have a doctor ready to say it."
"Dr.
Marsh," Grace said, "does not have a current medical license in this state.
He surrendered it in 2019." She let that sit for a moment.
"Whatever he signed, it won't hold."
The blanket was still warm across my legs.
Outside in the hallway, I heard Carol's voice, then another nurse laughing at something.
An ordinary sound.
May you like
A hospital sound.
I hadn't heard ordinary sounds in a long time.
