Chapter 2 - The Fourteen Missing Days
Frank released her only when Erin’s legs gave out completely.
She slid beside the SUV, protecting her ribs as he stepped back.
“You came into my house making accusations,” he said. “Don’t pretend you’re the victim.”
It was the same sentence he had used in the hospital.
During Erin’s coma, Frank and Linda had told doctors she fell from a folding ladder while searching for holiday decorations. They said she had been confused and agitated before the fall. They mentioned the anxiety medication she had taken briefly after ending her engagement two years earlier.
By the time Erin woke, the accident had become family history.
Linda had sat beside the hospital bed every day, smoothing Erin’s hair and correcting her whenever she tried to describe headlights, motel doors, or Frank’s voice.
“You dreamed that,” she would say.
Erin had returned to her parents’ house in Westerville because she could not shower alone, drive, or climb the stairs to her own second-floor apartment. Linda managed her pills. Frank drove her to rehabilitation. Both of them answered questions before she could.
That afternoon in the garage, Erin had asked for her old phone again.
Frank’s patience had disappeared.
Now Linda stepped toward her with both palms raised.
“You’re overtired. Let’s get you inside.”
“Why did you tell him to stop only after I looked at you?”
Linda glanced at Frank.
“I didn’t.”
“You said my name the night I got hurt.”
“That’s impossible. You were unconscious.”
“I wasn’t unconscious yet.”
Frank kicked Erin’s cane across the concrete.
“You fell. Your mother found you.”
Erin looked toward Linda.
“What time did you call 911?”
Linda’s lips parted.
Frank answered.
“Immediately.”
A memory surfaced—not a complete scene, only pieces.
The smell of motor oil.
Linda kneeling beside her.
Frank asking whether she could still hear him.
Then the garage lights going dark.
Erin pushed herself upright against the SUV.
“You waited.”
Linda looked away first.
That was enough.
Erin retrieved her cane, walked through the mudroom, and locked herself in the downstairs bathroom.
Using the rehabilitation center’s number saved on a paper card, she called her occupational therapist, Paige Moreno.
May you like
“I need somewhere else to stay,” Erin said.
Then she asked Paige to help her find the emergency-services report from the night she almost died.
