Chapter 6: The Pages Megan Signed
Megan’s words settled over the room. The monitor kept its steady rhythm, indifferent to the way my sister had gone pale.
“Where were you?” I asked. My voice came out quieter than I expected. “When he asked you?”
“At your house. You were upstairs, I think.” She looked down at her hands. “He said you’d already approved everything, and he just needed me to initial the household forms so he could keep the paperwork moving.”
“What did the pages look like?”
“I don’t remember all of them.” Megan swallowed. “A stack. He kept his hand over the top page while he pointed out where I should sign. I thought they were bills, or something about the house. He said you knew.”
I felt the old instinct rise—to protect her from the shame in her face, to make the room easier for everyone by saying it wasn’t her fault. But those initials were on a document that could change where I lived. Pretending that didn’t matter wouldn’t protect either of us.
“Did he say what the forms were for?” I asked.
“Just household stuff. He said you’d already taken care of the important parts.” She blinked hard. “I should have asked you.”
I drew a careful breath. The tightness in my stomach made me pause until it eased.
“Tell me everything you remember, even if it seems small.”
Megan nodded, visibly bracing herself. “He was in a hurry. He said he had to get things in before the end of the week. There was a blue folder. I remember because I asked if you wanted me to bring it upstairs, and he said no, you’d seen it.”
The room seemed to tilt around that ordinary detail. A blue folder. A busy afternoon. My sister believing she was helping me with the unremarkable business of a shared home.
Officer Ruiz wrote something in her notebook.
“Did you keep any messages from him about it?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I can check when I get my phone back.” Megan glanced at my empty bedside table, where my purse and phone should have been. Her expression hardened. “When we get it back.”
No one promised that would happen soon. I was grateful.
Dad stood from his chair. “There was another folder in the desk at the house. I didn’t bring it with the first packet because I wanted Ruiz to see what we already had before I started moving more papers.”
“Do you know what’s in it?” I asked.
“No. I saw the blue cover when I was securing the room. I can get it.”
Ruiz paused her writing. “Bring it directly here. Don’t sort through it or remove anything.”
Dad nodded once. He didn’t look at me as he left, but I knew he had heard the question beneath mine: How much had Eric arranged without me?
The door clicked shut. Megan sat beside my bed, keeping her hands folded in her lap. I wanted to take one of them. I wasn’t ready.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” she said.
“I know.”
“I’ll tell them exactly what happened.”
I looked at her. “Even if it makes you look bad?”
“Yes.”
That answer didn’t repair the crack between us. It gave me something I could stand on while I looked at it.
A nurse came in to check the monitor and ask whether I felt any new pain. I said no. The baby’s heartbeat remained strong, she told me, and the contractions had stayed quiet. Her calm voice helped, though it couldn’t make me forget that my body had already shown how quickly things could change.
When Dad returned, he carried a clear document sleeve. The blue folder was inside, along with several loose pages and a plain cover sheet. He set everything on the rolling table without opening it.
“I found it where you said?” Ruiz asked.
“In the desk drawer. The drawer wasn’t locked.”
Ruiz photographed the sleeve and its contents before she touched them. Dad stood beside her, jaw set, while Megan leaned forward as if she could make the pages confess by staring.
The cover sheet bore the name of a company I didn’t recognize and a line labeled CLOSING DATE.
Ruiz read it silently, then turned the page so I could see.
The date was four days away.
For a moment, the hospital sounds fell back—the monitor, the ventilation, a distant announcement—and all I could hear was the short, hollow beat of my own pulse.
“Four days,” I said.
“That’s what it says,” Ruiz replied.
“What happens if I don’t sign anything?”
“We don’t know what the other documents require,” she said carefully. “But this shows a transaction is scheduled. We’ll need to understand what was submitted and when.”
She didn’t tell me what to do. I had already heard enough people explain what I needed to do.
Dad’s fingers curled around the back of the chair. “I should have shown you this sooner.”
“You were trying to keep him from getting inside,” I said. “You didn’t know what was in the folder.”
“But I knew he was pressing for a sale.” He looked at me, pain passing briefly across his face. “I should have told you the moment I found the first papers.”
I didn’t absolve him. I didn’t have room for that right now. I nodded, and he accepted the smallness of it without asking for more.
A commotion rose beyond the room: quick footsteps, a staff member’s firm voice, then another voice I knew too well.
Eric.
The nurse stepped into the hall. Ruiz moved toward the door, but the words came first.
“I need Claire to sign one page. That’s all.”
My muscles tightened. The monitor picked up the change before I could hide it.
Ruiz opened the door only partway. Eric stood beyond it, his shirt rumpled, his face wearing the strain of a man who wanted an audience to mistake urgency for virtue.
“You can’t come in,” Ruiz said.
“I’m her husband.”
The word struck me harder than it should have. I didn’t correct him. I didn’t give it any meaning at all.
“I need her to sign a replacement document before the closing,” he continued. “The first one got held up.”
Ruiz stayed in the doorway. “What document?”
“Nothing complicated. It’s a signature page.”
“Then you can leave it with me.”
“No.” His eyes found mine past her shoulder. “It has to be Claire.”
Megan stood. Dad stepped closer to my bed, not blocking my view, not deciding for me. The space around me suddenly felt crowded with all the things Eric had brought into it: his deadline, his paperwork, his certainty that he could still make my choices for me.
“Why is there a closing date four days from now?” I asked.
“Because the buyers are ready. We don’t have time to drag this out.”
“You told Megan I’d approved the papers.”
“I said you knew what was going on.”
“I didn’t.”
His jaw shifted. He glanced at the clear sleeve on the table, then back at me. “That’s why I’m here. The other page needs to be replaced.”
Ruiz’s voice sharpened. “You can explain the paperwork without asking her to sign it here.”
“I’ve explained it.” Eric took a step toward the doorway. The nurse moved to stop him, and he halted, but his attention stayed fixed on me. “Claire, we need the sale. You know we do.”
“I don’t know that.”
His face hardened. The wounded look he’d worn at the hospital entrance disappeared, leaving the impatience underneath.
“You’re making this harder than it has to be.”
My hand went to my stomach, not to shield the baby from him, but to feel the warm, steady curve beneath my palm. I thought of the four days on that sheet. I thought of the bruise on my arm, the empty place where my phone should be, and Megan’s initials beside a signature I had never written.
“No,” I said. “I’m not signing anything.”
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Eric’s eyes narrowed. He leaned close, lowering his voice so the others would have to strain to hear.
“The sale is the only way to pay for the baby.”
