Chapter 2: The Porch
For a few seconds, the phone held only the sound of breathing.
Then Eric said, “You don’t get to decide who comes into my house.”
Dad’s voice stayed low. “I’m not discussing this with you on the porch.”
“It’s my house too.”
Megan’s hand tightened around the phone. She had put it on speaker so I could hear Dad, but now Eric’s voice filled the hospital room as if he had found a way inside after all.
I pressed my palm against my belly. The monitor kept up its steady rhythm, though my own heart beat too fast. I wanted to tell Dad to stop provoking him, though Dad had barely raised his voice.
“Just let me talk to Claire,” Eric said.
“She’s in the hospital.”
“I know where she is. I’m asking you to let me talk to my wife.”
The word wife sounded less like a name for me than another claim he could make.
“You can talk when she’s ready,” Dad said.
A breathless laugh came through the speaker. “Ready? She’s fine. She’s making this into something it isn’t.”
My throat tightened. I could feel the apology gathering—the old, familiar impulse to smooth things over before anyone got angrier. If I told Dad to give Eric the phone, maybe Eric would calm down. Maybe the shouting would stop.
Megan looked at me. She didn’t tell me what to do. Her eyes held mine, waiting.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, though no one in the room had asked.
The lie tasted dry.
Eric’s voice sharpened. “She’ll come home when she’s done with this performance.”
Dad didn’t answer immediately. In the pause, I heard a car pass outside the house, then the faint scrape of a shoe against the porch.
“Give me her purse,” Eric said. “She left it in the car.”
My fingers curled against the blanket. My purse hadn’t been left anywhere. It had gone with him.
Dad’s reply was even. “You have it.”
“I’m trying to get it back to her.”
“You can leave it with me.”
“No. I’m not handing her things over to you like she can’t make her own decisions.”
The words landed so neatly, they almost made me doubt what I knew. Eric could turn a missing purse into proof that I was unreasonable, then turn my fear into proof that I couldn’t decide anything for myself.
I leaned toward the phone. “Dad, don’t let him in.”
“I won’t,” Dad said.
Eric heard me. “Claire, you’re listening?”
I didn’t answer.
“I left you there because you were screaming at me and wouldn’t listen. You left the purse. I’m not the one making this complicated.”
A nurse glanced up from the chart at the foot of my bed. My face burned, but I kept my hand on my belly and made myself breathe through the pressure in my chest.
Dad said, “You can leave the purse outside.”
“I said I’m not giving it to you.”
“Then keep it. But you’re not coming in.”
The call ended with a soft click. Megan lowered the phone, and the room seemed suddenly too quiet. I stared at the dark screen, waiting for it to light up again.
“Maybe I should’ve just gone with him,” I said.
Megan’s expression changed—not into anger, exactly, but something harder to look at. “You were in pain, Claire.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to make it easier for him to tell this story.”
I looked down at the bruises on my arm. They had deepened since the morning, dark marks beneath the skin, plain as words I hadn’t wanted to say.
The nurse came to check the monitor. “Your baby’s heartbeat is steady,” she told me. “Try to keep resting.”
I nodded, but my thoughts stayed on the porch. Eric had already decided what had happened, and he was telling it as if I’d chosen every part of it.
Megan sat back down. “You need to rest. Let Ruiz come back when you’re feeling stronger.”
“I don’t want him getting to tell her first.”
“He already has.”
That was what frightened me. Not just that he would lie, but that he knew how to make his version sound ordinary. A purse left in a car. A wife who overreacted. A husband who had tried to help.
I swallowed. “Ask her to come in.”
Megan studied my face. “You’re sure?”
“No.” My voice shook. “But I want her to hear it from me.”
She stepped into the hall. A moment later, Officer Ruiz appeared beside the bed, her uniform neat, her expression attentive without being soft.
“Claire,” she said. “You don’t have to rush. Tell me what you remember, in your own words.”
I looked at the bracelet around my wrist, then at the bruises on my arm. I began with the pain and the quiet street, and told her what Eric had done. When I finished, the silence felt different from the silence on the phone: heavier, but not empty.
Ruiz made a brief note. “Dana’s account supports what you’ve told me. She described seeing you after Eric drove away.”
May you like
My breath caught. For the first time since the roadside, I didn’t feel like I was standing alone inside his version of events.
Ruiz set her pen down. “Has Eric ever frightened you before?”
