Chapter 2
I pointed at Vivian.
She did not lower her chin or look away. She lifted her purse higher on her shoulder and gave Eleanor a measured smile.
“Emily became upset,” Vivian said. “I tried to calm her.”
“She struck me,” I said.
Eleanor turned to her. “Did you?”
Marcus stepped forward.
“Mom, everyone was arguing. Emily needs to go home and rest.”
Eleanor looked at him for a long moment.
“She can tell me what she needs.”
Another tightening crossed my stomach. I gripped the railing again.
Eleanor’s expression changed. She asked the hotel doorman to bring a chair and call for medical help. I tried to tell her I could walk, but she had already moved the chair close enough for me to sit without crossing the lobby.
A hotel employee brought water. Someone else spoke to the emergency dispatcher.
Marcus stood over me.
“This is unnecessary,” he said quietly.
I looked up. “Move.”
He stared at me.
“I need space,” I said.
Eleanor stepped beside my chair. Marcus walked away toward Vivian.
The two of them spoke in low voices near the curb. I watched Vivian touch his arm. He did not pull back.
Eleanor crouched beside me.
“Is the baby moving?”
“Yes.”
“When did the tightening start?”
“After she hit me.”
She nodded. “We’ll let the doctors check you.”
I wanted to ask whether she believed me. Before I could, the doorman approached with the hotel security manager. He said a camera covered the entrance.
“Please preserve the recording,” I told him.
He looked at Eleanor, who said, “Emily asked you.”
The manager nodded and went inside.
Vivian heard us. Her smile faded.
“Surely you don’t need footage of a private family disagreement,” she said.
“I need the footage of you hitting me,” I answered.
For the first time since the slap, she had nothing to say.
Eleanor rose and picked up her leather folder. I remembered why I had come.
“Was there a trust meeting?”
“Yes.”
Marcus turned toward us. “Mom, that can wait.”
“It will,” Eleanor said. “Emily’s health comes first.”
I watched the way she held the folder close to her side. She had expected to discuss something serious. Marcus knew what it was. I could see that now.
“Why did you invite me?” I asked.
Eleanor looked at Marcus.
“I wanted you present for a conversation about a loan application,” she said.
“What loan?”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“Mom.”
Eleanor did not answer him.
“A lender contacted me yesterday,” she told me. “Someone applied to borrow against a property you own.”
I thought of the small brick house my mother had left me. She had raised me there, painted the porch blue, and made me promise not to sell it in a hurry after she died.
I rented it to a family friend. Marcus knew how much that house meant to me.
“I haven’t applied for a loan.”
“I was afraid you might say that.”
Vivian took a step back from Marcus.
He noticed me watching and said, “It’s a financing option. Nothing has been completed.”
“You used my house?”
“I was going to discuss it with you.”
“When?”
“The documents aren’t final.”
Eleanor opened the folder enough to take out one page. She showed me my name near the bottom.
The signature looked like mine. I knew I had never put it there.
My stomach tightened again.
The emergency team arrived before I could ask more. A paramedic checked me while Eleanor told him about the blow and the tightening. He recommended that I be evaluated at the hospital.
“I’ll drive with her,” Marcus said.
“No,” I said.
He looked offended. I did not care.
Eleanor offered to come. I said yes.
As they helped me stand, Vivian called after Marcus.
“Tell your mother what Emily signed.”
I turned.
“What did I sign?”
Marcus’s eyes were fixed on the folder.
“Nothing,” he said. “She’s trying to upset you.”
I had heard that answer from him whenever a question brought me close to something he did not want me to see.
The paramedic guided me toward the ambulance. Eleanor walked beside us.
At the door, I stopped and looked back.
“Don’t go to my house,” I told Marcus.
His face hardened. “It’s our home.”
“My mother’s house is mine. Don’t go there either.”
Eleanor heard me. She took out her phone and called her attorney before we had even left the driveway.
At the hospital, I changed into a gown and lay still while a nurse placed monitors across my stomach. I listened until I could hear my baby’s heartbeat.
Only then did I begin to cry.
Eleanor sat near the bed. She did not ask me to stop.
“I thought he was excited,” I said. “He painted the nursery with me.”
“He may have been excited then.”
I turned my head toward her. “You don’t have to defend him.”
“I’m not going to.”
My phone lit up with a message from an unknown number.
May you like
It contained a photograph of a page with my signature.
Beneath it, Vivian had written: Ask Marcus where he got the original.
