Chapter 5 - THE MOTHER WHO KEPT CANCELING
Melissa admitted she had discussed Ryan with Lily.
“He makes everything into evidence,” she said. “She needed to understand why he kept questioning her.”
“She was eight,” Nora replied. “She needed medical care, not an explanation of your custody conflict.”
The hospital arranged separate visiting hours while Lily remained sedated. Melissa entered first. Ryan waited in the family lounge, watching a vending machine hum beside an unplugged television.
When his turn came, Lily looked impossibly small beneath the blankets.
A tube ran beneath her nose. Her face was swollen. Ryan sat beside the bed without touching her until her eyes opened.
“Dad?”
“I’m here.”
“Are you mad?”
“No.”
Her eyes filled.
“I said you did it.”
“I know.”
“Mom said the police wouldn’t come fast if I just said my stomach hurt.”
Ryan kept his voice steady.
“Did she tell you anything else?”
Lily looked toward the glass door.
“She said if people thought you were dangerous, you couldn’t take me away.”
Ryan left the room before his anger became visible to her.
In the corridor, he found Melissa waiting.
“You made her think I was trying to steal her.”
“You had papers drawn up.”
“For medical decisions.”
“You wanted more custody.”
“I wanted someone to take her pain seriously.”
Melissa laughed once, but there was no amusement in it.
“You mean someone who wasn’t working ten-hour days and choosing between rent and a specialist.”
Ryan stopped.
Melissa had lost more than a few hours. Her department had cut her position from full-time to twenty-four hours a week. She had hidden the change because the child-support calculation might be reviewed and because she feared Ryan would use her finances against her.
She had fallen two months behind on rent.
Ryan had seen the grocery shortage but not the rest.
“You could’ve told me.”
“And hear you say Lily should live with you?”
“I might have said it.”
“That’s why I didn’t.”
Her fear was understandable.
What she did with it was not.
The next afternoon, Leah received the portal-access history for Lily’s medical account. Melissa had canceled the appointments, but someone else had logged in several times afterward to download the records.
The login came from the public computers at the Norwood branch library.
On the same dates, Melissa had used the library printer.
May you like
She had not simply avoided the records.
She had been collecting them for something.
