Chapter 2 - A Hospital Story Already Prepared
Caleb made Emily switch seats.
He drove north toward Saint Luke’s Community Hospital while she held a water bottle beneath her nose, catching blood in the hem of her black top. He kept one hand on the wheel and the other resting near the center console, close enough to remind her what would happen if she changed the story.
At the emergency entrance, he opened her door and supported her elbow like a concerned husband.
“My wife had a single-car accident,” he told the intake clerk before Emily could speak. “She panicked, lost control, and hit her face on the wheel.”
“What did the vehicle strike?” the clerk asked.
“A curb. Maybe a sign. It happened fast.”
Caleb answered every question. He knew Emily’s insurance number without looking at the card. He knew the name of the anxiety medication she had taken briefly after Lucy’s birth nine years earlier. He knew the date of the panic attack Emily had suffered after her father’s funeral.
Each detail sounded caring until she noticed how carefully he placed it.
A nurse named Marissa led Emily toward an exam room. Caleb followed.
“I need to examine her privately,” Marissa said.
“My wife gets confused when she’s scared.”
“She can answer for herself.”
Caleb gave Emily a warning look before stepping outside.
Marissa shut the door. Her gaze moved from Emily’s swollen eye to the blood beneath her nose, then to the lack of bruising across her chest.
“Were you wearing a seat belt?”
Emily nodded.
“Did the airbag deploy?”
“No.”
“What did the SUV hit?”
Emily stared at the paper sheet covering the examination table.
“A curb.”
Marissa waited.
Emily wanted to say Caleb’s name. Instead, she imagined Lucy waking in an unfamiliar bed, asking why her mother had not called.
“It was an accident,” Emily whispered.
Marissa did not argue. She placed a small card beneath Emily’s folded discharge clothes.
“If the answer changes, call the number on that card. You don’t have to explain everything the first time.”
A CT scan showed a fractured orbital floor and a broken nose. The physician recommended observation, but Caleb insisted he could monitor her at home.
While he argued with the billing desk, Emily used the room phone to call her mother-in-law.
Diane answered after four rings.
“Is Lucy with you?”
A pause.
“She’s asleep.”
“Bring her home.”
“I can’t do that, Emily.”
“Why?”
Diane’s voice dropped.
“Because Caleb told me you might try to take her tonight.”
Emily looked through the glass panel at her husband, who was smiling politely at the billing clerk.
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“Diane, he told you that before we went to the hospital, didn’t he?”
Another pause answered more clearly than words.
