Chapter 3 - The Story Damon Had Started Before the Birth
Blythe remained at the hospital through the afternoon.
Not because doctors believed she was unstable.
Because she had been assaulted three days postpartum and needed monitoring.
That distinction mattered.
A social worker named Marlene sat beside the bed and asked questions slowly.
Had Damon ever hit Blythe before?
“No.”
Then Blythe corrected herself.
“Not like this.”
Marlene waited.
There had been grabbing.
Blocked doorways.
A broken lamp after Blythe tried to leave an argument.
A night in her eighth month of pregnancy when Damon took her car keys because she was “too emotional to drive.”
Blythe had called those incidents ugly fights.
Marlene wrote them down without changing her expression.
“Has he ever threatened the baby before today?”
“No.”
“Threatened to take the baby?”
Blythe started to say no.
Then stopped.
During an argument six weeks earlier, Damon had said:
If you keep acting like this after he’s born, maybe I’ll be the one raising him.
Blythe had interpreted it as cruelty.
Nothing more.
Marlene asked, “Has Damon ever discussed your mental health with other people?”
“I had anxiety in college.”
“Anything recently?”
“I was nervous during pregnancy. That’s not the same thing.”
“I’m not suggesting it is.”
Blythe’s eyes filled anyway.
After Marlene left, Ellis showed her a text Loretta had sent him.
Please go tomorrow morning. Don’t call ahead. Just go.
The timestamp was 9:47 the previous night.
Blythe frowned.
“Why tomorrow morning?”
“Loretta knew Damon planned to be home.”
“How?”
“I assumed he told her.”
That did not sound right.
Damon barely spoke to his mother.
Or that was what he had always told Blythe.
Then Blythe remembered something from labor.
Damon had stepped into the hallway several times to take calls.
Whenever she asked who it was, he said work.
His employer knew he was on parental leave.
Blythe called Kara from Ellis’s phone.
“Did Damon text you after I delivered?”
Kara went quiet.
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That you were overwhelmed and didn’t want visitors.”
“Anything else?”
Another pause.
“He said you were having a harder time emotionally than expected.”
Blythe closed her eyes.
Damon had begun constructing an explanation for her behavior before she had even come home.
By evening, Blythe made her first decision without him.
She would not return to the house.
She and Arlo would stay with Ellis.
When Ellis went to collect essential baby items with police assistance, Blythe gave him a short list.
Diapers.
Bassinet.
Her medication.
Clothes.
Then she added one more thing.
The discharge folder from the hospital.
May you like
Damon had insisted on keeping it downstairs.
Blythe wanted to know why.
