Chapter 7
Back inside the hospital, I was placed in a quiet consultation room near the discharge desk.
Not a patient room.
Not yet.
A safe room, the nurse said.
She brought warm water, a chair with arm support, and a bassinet for Leo.
I did not put him down immediately.
My body ached.
My arms trembled.
Still, I held him.
Because outside, Dominic had looked at our son like a piece of the argument.
And I needed to feel Leo’s weight as a person.
The nurse’s name was Allison.
She crouched beside me.
“Is there anyone besides your father you want contacted?”
I started to say no.
Then stopped.
My attorney.
I had one.
Not because of divorce.
Because my father insisted everyone in our family have independent counsel after marriage.
Dominic had mocked it.
“Your father makes everything feel like a corporate merger.”
Maybe some marriages needed to be treated like mergers when one side was looking for assets.
“Yes,” I said.
“Gerald Pierce.”
Allison wrote it down.
My father was still on the phone.
“He’s already been called,” he said.
Of course he had.
I closed my eyes.
“Dad, what did you do?”
“Enough for now.”
That was his answer.
Not evasive.
Protective.
Outside the consultation room, voices rose.
Dominic’s.
Victoria’s.
A hospital administrator’s.
Natalie’s voice, quieter, anxious.
Then Dominic’s phone rang loudly before he silenced it.
Another alert.
Another thread pulled.
I looked at the money in my hand.
Three bills.
Bus fare.
Five days after surgery.
I laughed once.
It came out broken.
Allison looked concerned.
“I’m okay,” I said.
Then corrected myself, because I was tired of lying.
“No. I’m not okay.”
My father’s voice softened.
“That is the first sensible thing anyone has said today.”
I cried then.
Quietly, because Leo was sleeping.
Not because Dominic had hurt me.
May you like
Because I had finally said the truth in a room where no one punished me for it.
Read the full story 👉 Inside the hospital, Audrey stopped pretending she was okay and let her father and attorney begin protecting her properly.
