Chapter 4
The air outside the building was colder than I'd expected for that time of day. My father's hand stayed at my elbow as we cleared the double doors, not pulling, just there. My daughter was on my hip, her yellow dress riding up her legs, her face pressed into my shoulder. The marble lobby gave way to concrete, and the automatic doors behind us sighed shut.
His car was three spaces from the entrance, a gray Subaru I'd ridden in a hundred times. He didn't ask if I could walk. He just opened the back door and waited while I slid in with her, my cream dress bunching around my knees. The white flats I'd been wearing since morning were wet at the soles from the lobby floor cleaner. I couldn't get the seatbelt around both of us and my belly at the same time.
"I've got her," he said quietly. He lifted her from me and buckled her into the seat he'd kept in his trunk since she was born. He did it without looking at me, his hands steady but his mouth a tight line. "Lean back."
He closed the door and got in the front. He didn't lock the penthouse doors behind us. He just drove.
I thought he'd go to the police station on Fifth. That's where he'd taken me when I was sixteen and someone hit my car in the school lot. Instead he turned right on the county road and headed toward the strip with the gas station and the all-night diner, the one with the chipped neon sign that buzzed even in daylight. I didn't ask why.
"You didn't lock it," I said after a block. My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to.
"I know," he said. His eyes stayed on the road. "Let him."
My daughter kicked her feet against the seat. Her white socks had a gray smudge on one ankle. I reached back and held her hand. My other hand rested on my belly without thinking, and that's when I felt it — not a kick, but a low, deep ache that wrapped around to my back. The kind that had sent me to the triage line at twenty weeks when I'd lifted a laundry basket wrong.
We pulled into the diner's parking lot. It was half empty, just a couple of trucks and a woman smoking by the diner door. My father parked under the one working lot light and cut the engine. For a second none of us moved. The diner windows threw warm yellow light across the asphalt.
I shifted in the seat and felt a wetness I hadn't expected. I looked down. My dress was still cream. No color. But the ache tightened again and I sucked in a breath before I could stop it.
My father turned around. "What is it?"
"Nothing," I said automatically. "Just cramping."
He watched my face the way he had when I was a kid trying to hide a fever before a recital. He didn't call me a liar. He just said, "Is that from the sofa?"
The question landed quiet. Partial truth was all I had ready.
"He grabbed me," I said. My throat was dry. "He pushed me onto the sofa. He had his hand on my face. I was trying to keep her away from us."
My father nodded once, his jaw working. He reached back and his hand covered mine where it held my daughter's.
"Did you fall on your stomach?" he asked.
"I don't think so. I landed on my side. He was — he was holding my neck more than anything." I swallowed. "I felt okay leaving. Now it hurts. And I thought I felt something wet."
He didn't panic. He unbuckled his seatbelt and got out, opened my door, and crouched so we were level. The parking lot light made the gray in his hair look silver.
"We're going to urgent care," he said. It wasn't a question. "The one by the highway. Not the ER downtown. They'll see you faster and they have the right monitors."
"I don't want to make a big thing," I said. "If it's nothing, we'll have waited for nothing. And she's tired, Dad. She hasn't napped."
"She can sleep in the car seat. I'll carry her in." He looked at my belly, then at me. "You've got two to worry about right now. You know that."
Another cramp rolled through, sharper, and I gripped the door handle. My daughter made a small sound and patted my arm. I realized my breathing had gone shallow.
"Okay," I said finally. "Okay, urgent care. But can we just sit here a minute? I don't want to walk in there and not know what to say."
"You don't have to say everything tonight," he said. "You just have to get checked. I'll stay with her in the waiting room. You let them check you."
I nodded. The ache eased a fraction. The diner door opened and the smell of coffee and grease came out for a second, then was gone. I kept hold of my daughter's hand. My father's coat was still outside the penthouse, I realized — he'd left it on the floor by the elevator when he'd been pounding. He was in just his white shirt and tie, sleeves rolled up, cold in the parking lot air, and he hadn't mentioned it once.
"Thank you for not going to the police first," I whispered.
"I will if you want me to," he said. "But you needed out first. And she needed dinner and a quiet place more than a station lobby. We can do the rest after they listen to the heartbeat."
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He closed my door gently and came around to lift my daughter out, holding her against his chest where she tucked her head under his chin. I pushed myself up slowly, one hand on my belly, one on the car roof, and felt my legs hold. No blood on the dress. Just the ache, steady and insistent, reminding me I couldn't pretend it away.
We stood for a moment in that parking lot, the three of us under the buzzing light, before he guided us toward the car again for the short drive to urgent care.
