Chapter 7: The Weight of Her
She was in a small incubator with a monitor taped to her chest and a feeding tube no thicker than a strand of spaghetti.
She was the smallest thing I had ever seen.
The NICU nurse, a young man named Theo with careful hands, walked me through everything she was connected to and why, speaking quietly and without rushing, as though we had all the time in the world.
"Her lungs are doing the work themselves," he said.
"That's the main thing at thirty-four weeks.
She's breathing without assistance.
That's a very good sign."
"She screamed when she came out," I said.
Theo smiled.
"I heard.
Good set of lungs."
He showed me how to reach through the incubator port.
I put my hand in and rested two fingers against her palm.
She was asleep.
Her fingers were the size of my thumbnail.
She wrapped her hand around my two fingers without waking up.
I stood there for a long time.
Theo moved to the other side of the room to give me space.
He was young enough that he probably didn't know how to read the situation — the hospital bracelet, the absence of a second parent, the fact that I had arrived alone on a stretcher from a state investigation — but he was kind enough not to ask.
"She needs a name," he said from across the room.
Not pushing.
Just noting.
"I know."
"No rush.
We just need it for the paperwork before discharge."
I looked at her face.
She had Julian's brow and my chin and a nose that didn't look like either of us yet.
"Clara," I said.
I hadn't planned it.
It came out the way true things sometimes do.
Theo wrote it down.
I stayed with Clara for an hour.
When I finally went back to my room, there was a voicemail from a number I didn't recognize.
I almost deleted it.
Then I played it.
A woman's voice.
Older.
Careful.
*"Ms.
Sterling — I'm sorry, I don't know what name you prefer.
My name is Margaret Holt.
Robert is my husband.
I want you to know that I am not calling on his behalf.
I'm calling because I know what he did last night.
I know he sent your husband up to that room.
I know about the text he sent you."*
A pause.
*"I've been watching what my husband does for a long time.
I have kept quiet for a long time.
I am not going to keep quiet anymore.
I have documents.
Not financial ones.
Correspondence.
Between Robert and Eleanor Sterling going back nine years.
Some of it is relevant to your case.
Some of it is relevant to other things."*
Another pause.
*"I'm sorry for what happened to you last night.
I'm sorry it took me this long to say something.
Please call me back if you want what I have."*
The voicemail ended.
I sat on the edge of the hospital bed and listened to the silence.
Margaret Holt had just handed me something no one on the investigation team had anticipated.
Nine years of correspondence between the family attorney and Eleanor Sterling.
I called Diana.
She answered immediately.
"I just got a voicemail," I said.
"From Robert Holt's wife."
May you like
The pause on Diana's end was the longest I had ever heard from her.
"Say that again slowly."
