Chapter 3: What the Ambulance Took With It
The paramedics arrived in eleven minutes.
I know because I counted every second.
Sophie didn't cry on the way to the elevator.
She pressed her face against my neck and breathed in small, careful pulls, like she was afraid that crying would cost her something she couldn't afford to lose.
One of the paramedics — a young woman with short red hair — crouched beside us and spoke to Sophie in a low, steady voice.
"Can you tell me your name, sweetheart?"
"Sophie," she whispered.
"That's a beautiful name.
Sophie, I'm going to put this little light near your eye, okay?
It won't hurt."
Sophie nodded.
She let the woman work.
She was braver in that moment than anyone else in that ballroom had been.
I looked back once as they wheeled us toward the exit.
Two hundred guests.
Crystal glasses still in hand.
The string quartet had not resumed playing, but no one had left their seats either.
They watched us go the way people watch a car accident from the highway — grateful it wasn't them, unable to look away.
Preston stood at the front of the room with his arms at his sides.
Catherine had moved to his left.
My mother was still beside him.
My father had finally moved — but only to accept a fresh glass of champagne from a passing server.
The elevator doors closed.
In the ambulance, a second paramedic pressed a gauze pad firmly above Sophie's ear.
She winced but didn't pull away.
"Mom," she said.
"I'm right here."
"Is Uncle Preston in trouble?"
I looked at her small face.
The gauze.
The dried crimson on her collar.
"Yes," I said.
"He is."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: "He said I took something.
But I didn't, Mommy.
I didn't take anything."
"I know."
"Do you believe me?"
I took her hand.
"I have never believed anything more in my entire life."
She closed her eyes.
Her grip didn't loosen.
At the hospital, they took Sophie into a curtained bay and asked me to wait outside for fifteen minutes while they assessed the wound.
I sat in a plastic chair in the hallway and stared at my hands.
The bl00d had dried into the lines of my palms.
I didn't try to wipe it away.
My phone had been ringing since the elevator.
I looked at the screen.
Four missed calls from my mother.
One from my father.
None from Preston.
One text from a number I didn't recognize.
I opened it.
*I saw what happened.
I know what Catherine put in that brooch box before the ceremony.
Call me.
— Diane*
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Diane.
Preston's former assistant.
The woman Catherine had demanded he fire six months ago, three weeks after they got engaged.
My thumb hovered over the call button.
The curtain opened.
A doctor stepped out.
"Ms.
Vance?
Sophie is stable.
The laceration required four stitches.
She has a mild concussion — we'd like to keep her overnight for observation."
"Can I see her?"
"Of course."
I stood.
I looked at the text one more time, then slipped the phone into my pocket.
Whatever Diane knew had waited this long.
It could wait another hour.
But as I pushed through the curtain and saw Sophie sitting up against a white pillow with a small bandage above her ear, already asking the nurse if the hospital had apple juice — I felt something settle into place beneath my grief.
May you like
This was not over.
It had barely started.
