Chapter 2

My abdomen was still cramping in waves when the ambulance left our neighborhood.

A nurse wheeled me in for an examination. I lay on the bed, staring at the blurred shape on the monitor until the doctor turned up the sound.

A rapid heartbeat filled the room.

My fingers slowly released the sheet.

The doctor confirmed that the baby was safe for now. The pain could have been caused by prolonged stress and lack of rest. She warned me to return immediately if it became worse or if I developed any other symptoms.

"Has anyone been disrupting your sleep lately?"

I thought about the ten months of nighttime entries in the red care binder.

"Yes."

"Stop providing care at night if you can. You need someone looking after you too."

I lowered my head and straightened my clothes without answering.

After I left the examination room, I sent Graham a message.

The baby is safe for now. The doctor told me to reduce my stress and stop providing care at night.

He replied twenty minutes later.

I knew you were overreacting because you were stressed. Brynn is still being evaluated. We may be back late.

He didn't ask how I was getting home.

I called a car.

Back at the house, I slowly cleaned the kitchen. There wasn't a trace of blood on the knife. The pages from the red care binder were still scattered across the floor, completely out of order.

I sat down and sorted them one by one.

It was one in the morning when Graham brought Brynn home.

He paused when he saw me.

"How did the examination go?"

"I told you in my message."

"I couldn't deal with both situations at once." He took off his coat.

"The doctor said the baby was fine, right?"

I looked at him.

"A safe examination result doesn't prove I was pretending to deceive you."

Graham avoided my eyes and turned to pour Brynn a glass of water.

She sat at the table with the hospital identification band still around her wrist. The moment she saw the pharmacy bag, her expression darkened.

"I don't want to take it tonight."

I took out the pill organizer.

"What did the evaluation team tell you?"

"To keep taking my medication."

"Then follow their instructions. If the side effects are making you sick, we can call your doctor now."

Brynn pushed the organizer away.

"It makes me nauseous. My brain feels like it's covered in fog. You don't care how awful it makes me feel."

Graham pulled out the chair beside her.

"Then skip it tonight."

I looked up at him.

"She just had a risk assessment, and you're telling her to stop taking her medication on her own?"

"What harm can one missed dose do?"

"I don't know. That's why we need to ask her doctor."

I pushed the discharge papers toward him. The contact number was printed on the first page.

Graham didn't pick them up.

"It's after one. We can call tomorrow."

"Then you're responsible for monitoring her tonight."

He frowned.

"You're already here. Why do you have to divide everything so precisely?"

I placed my emergency examination report on the table.

"My doctor told me to stop providing care at night."

Brynn stared at the paper.

"So now that you have a baby, I'm not even allowed to bother you about one reaction to my medication."

"You can ask your brother."

Her eyes immediately filled with tears.

Graham turned to me.

"You know what she just went through."

"That's exactly why you can't approve a missed dose and then leave me to deal with the consequences."

I pushed the medication, discharge papers, and glass of water toward Graham.

"She can take it, you can call the doctor, or you can monitor her after she skips it. The two of you can decide."

Brynn swept the pill organizer away.

The plastic box struck the floor, scattering pills beneath the chairs.

Graham didn't ask her to pick them up. He crouched down and gathered them himself, looking up at me with accusation in his eyes.

"Do you have to make our home feel like a hospital?"

"These instructions came from her doctor."

"She needs a family, Marlowe. She doesn't need a binder."

He placed the pills on a napkin, then pushed the red care binder back toward me.

"You know her better than anyone. Watch her for one more night."

I left the binder untouched. I picked up my examination report and went to the bedroom.

Before I closed the door, I heard Brynn begin to cry.

Graham was comforting her, telling her that pregnancy had made me anxious and that she shouldn't take anything I had said that night personally.

The pills were still sitting on the napkin the next morning.

Brynn stood at the foot of the stairs, looking exhausted.

"I could smell the kitchen all night."

Graham asked if she still felt nauseous.

She shook her head and looked upstairs.

"Every time I close my eyes, I see that knife. Maybe I could sleep if I moved to a room farther away from the kitchen."

Graham followed her gaze.

The room farthest from the kitchen was the nursery we had just finished clearing for our baby.