Chapter 2

2: 2

"Where did you put my tie?"

Seven in the morning, and Dale was calling.

"Second drawer in the closet."

"It's not here."

"On the left."

"Still nothing. Come home and help me find it."

I glanced at the suitcase beside me, half packed.

"I'm at the hospital."

"Feeling sick again?"

"Picking up my records."

"I already told you, those things only hurt every time you look at them. There's no reason to keep them."

His voice went soft.

"Be good, grab them and come home. I'll take you out to eat."

"Okay."

I hung up and slid my ID card across to the window.

The clerk paged through the system for a while, then printed only the surgical record.

"Where's the prenatal screening report?"

"There's nothing in the system."

"The doctor said it was high risk."

"We have no record of any prenatal screening submitted for you."

She turned the visit summary toward me.

"That day you only had a routine exam, and afterward you scheduled the termination."

"My husband was the one who brought the report back."

"Then you'll have to ask him which facility ran it."

I took a photo of the summary and went to the medical records office.

The doctor on duty checked the file, and her brow tightened.

"Your husband is Dale Gilbert?"

"Yes."

"At the time he said you were emotionally unstable, so he asked that everything about your condition be discussed only with him."

"So no one ever asked me whether I wanted it re-checked?"

"You signed the termination consent form yourself."

The doctor paused.

"The report Mr. Gilbert brought in was in a very standard format. It never occurred to us there might be a problem."

"Is the report still here?"

"The paper copy was taken by the family."

"Can you find out which facility it came from?"

She was quiet for a few seconds, then wrote down a string of numbers for me.

"All I can tell you is that this number doesn't match the coding format used by this city's prenatal screening center."

My phone rang while I was photographing that string of numbers.

"Did you get the records?"

"I got them."

"What did the doctor say?"

"That I've recovered well."

Dale gave a soft laugh.

"I knew it. What do you feel like eating tonight?"

"Anything."

"You always say anything, then when it's not to your taste you dump it out when no one's looking."

I gripped the visit summary tighter.

He even knew I'd poured out the chicken soup.

"Last night's soup, you saw it?"

"The housekeeper saw it this morning when she took out the trash."

"Are you mad at me?"

"Why would I be."

"Then don't waste it. Elaine went out of her way to ask her sister for the recipe. Even if you don't like her, you should still drink a couple of sips."

"Dale, does her thoughtfulness really matter that much to you?"

The line went quiet.

"She meant well."

"You can't dismiss what someone else puts in just because you don't like her."

"I understand."

"Good girl."

He coaxed me a little longer before he hung up.

I walked to the payment window and pulled up the IVF records from six months back.

The day they retrieved my eggs, my abdomen swelled up badly, and the pain kept me awake all night.

Dale cleared his schedule and stayed with me for three days.

I threw up on him, and he didn't so much as frown.

"Ruby, if it hurts that much, bite me."

Later, when the transfer succeeded, he bought dozens of parenting books and read stories to my belly every night.

How could a Dale like that not love that child?

I once tortured myself with that question for a whole night.

Now the answer was right in front of me.

He loved him.

It was just that when Elaine wanted his attention, that love could be set aside for a while.

On my phone, the trending post had already been deleted.

The account that posted it was gone too.

I opened the screenshot I'd saved last night and zoomed in on the corner of the photo.

A bank card was reflected on the glass table.

The last four digits were 0716.

I knew that card.

Our anniversary was July sixteenth, and Dale had gone out of his way to open a supplementary card for me.

He said the money on it would always be my safety net.

But in the past six months, I hadn't gotten a single spending alert.

The bank employee finished pulling the statements and handed me the itemized list.

"Starting last December, this supplementary card has had a fixed charge every month."

"Hotels, beauty stores, and a private apartment."

"And the most recent one?"

"Last night, a jewelry store, eighty-six thousand."

I folded the statement, and Dale's message came through right on cue.

"Babe, I bought you a gift."

Right after it, a photo of a diamond bracelet.

I opened the bank statement.

The place where last night's eighty-six thousand had been spent was an adult store.