Chapter 4: The Waiting Room Has Eyes
The nurse's name was Patricia.
She told me after Carol left, like she wanted me to have something real to hold onto.
"You're doing well," Patricia said.
"Your blood pressure is still high.
I need you to stay as calm as you can."
"Is my baby all right?"
"We're monitoring.
The baby is stressed but stable." She adjusted the cuff on my arm.
"You got here in time."
I stared at the ceiling.
"He almost didn't bring me."
"I know," Patricia said.
"I heard what your mother-in-law told the intake desk."
"She said I fell."
"She said it twice.
Volunteered it before anyone asked." Patricia wrote something on her clipboard.
"In my experience, people who volunteer a story that quickly have been practicing it."
From the hallway, I heard voices.
One of them was my husband's.
He was speaking in a lower register now — controlled, reasonable, the voice he used when he needed someone to believe him.
Patricia heard it too.
She walked to the door and closed it the rest of the way.
"He's asking to come in," she said.
"Don't let him."
"I won't." She came back and sat in the chair Carol had used.
"Is there anyone I can call for you?
Family.
A friend.
Anyone."
I thought about my sister in Houston.
We hadn't spoken in eight months.
My husband had decided she was a bad influence.
I had stopped arguing about it because arguing cost too much.
"My sister," I said.
"Her name is Lin."
Patricia handed me the desk phone without hesitation.
Lin picked up on the second ring.
When she heard my voice, she went quiet in the way that meant she was already standing up, already reaching for her keys.
"Which hospital?" she said.
I told her.
"I'm coming," she said.
"Don't let him in the room."
"I know."
"I mean it.
Don't let him talk to you.
Don't explain anything.
Just wait for me."
"Lin—"
"I've been waiting for you to call," she said.
"I've been waiting for eight months."
I couldn't answer that.
I set the phone down and looked at my hands.
The door opened.
Not my husband — a man in a gray jacket with a lanyard I didn't recognize.
He nodded at Patricia and showed her something on a folded paper.
She read it and stepped aside.
He looked at me.
"My name is Detective Harmon.
I work with Carol's unit." He pulled the second chair close but didn't sit until I nodded.
"I have a few questions, and I want you to know you are not in any trouble.
Everything you say to me stays in this room unless you give permission.
Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"The recordings on the phone — are you the one who made them?"
"Yes."
"Did anyone help you?
Did anyone know you were recording?"
"No one," I said.
"Not even my daughters."
He wrote something.
"How old are your daughters?"
"Four and two."
He stopped writing.
He looked up at me.
"Where are they right now?"
The question landed like a stone dropped into still water.
I had not thought about where they were.
I had been in so much pain when they brought me out of the house that I had not looked back.
I had assumed they were inside.
I had assumed they were safe.
"They were home," I said.
May you like
"They were in the house when we left."
Detective Harmon was already on his feet.
