50 Billion Reasons to Leave You novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Visiting Hours

The Rasks block her from Donovan's hospital bed and say she staged it; in the elevator she reads who delivered her to the house.

St. Anselm's private wing had its own elevator, its own coffee machine and a nurse at the desk who looked at my evening gown and didn't ask a question.

I knew that look.

I wore it myself on shift when a family came in dressed for something else.

Room 412 had its door open.

I saw the foot of a bed, and a row of people standing at it.

Lowell Rask stood at the head with his hands folded.

Odette stood beside him in a cream suit, her pearls on, her hair done.

Donovan lay propped on two pillows with a drip in his arm and a gray hospital gown open at the collar.

He looked pale and very tired.

Summer was in the doorway before I could take a step.

She was in a fresh white dress, not the one she'd worn to the ballroom, and she put her palm flat against the air between us.

"Kate, stop," she said. "Not like this."

"Move, Summer."

"He's only just fallen asleep."

Donovan's eyes were open and he was looking at me.

"He's awake," I said.

"He's sedated," Odette said. "Please keep your voice down."

I looked at the four of them.

Nobody had asked if I was hurt.

Nobody had asked where I'd been.

My mother-in-law's face was composed and my father-in-law's was patient, and neither had a mark on it from a sleepless night.

"I was taken out of your ballroom last night," I said. "Two men put a sack over my head and carried me down a service lift."

"Kathleen," Lowell said, very gently. "Let's not do this in front of the staff."

"There are no staff. It's your private wing."

"The hotel's security staff saw you leave with two men you seemed to know," he said. "Odette and I have been trying to understand why."

I almost laughed.

"You told me to sit tight until Monday," I said, and looked at Donovan.

"Kate," Donovan said hoarsely.

He tried to sit up, and the drip stand rattled.

"Donovan," Odette said, and laid a hand on his chest, and he lay back.

It was a small push, and he let it happen.

That was when I saw the bruise.

It ringed his left wrist, four fingers wide, new and purple, below the hospital band.

Somebody had held on to him hard enough to leave it.

I looked at Lowell's hand, folded over his other hand, and then at Donovan's face.

"You called me from a ballroom," I said to my husband. "I heard everything behind you."

"I was trying to keep you calm," Donovan said.

"You told me to be good."

"That's enough," Lowell said. "You've been through something, and we're willing to forgive a great deal. A stunt like this one embarrasses everyone, but it will blow over."

"A stunt."

"A cry for attention. Odette has already told the board you were unwell."

Odette had told the board I was unwell.

I stood in a corridor in a ruined gown and felt something in my chest go very quiet and very clear.

It was the feeling I get at four in the morning when a patient stops arguing and I know exactly what the next ten minutes have to be.

I took off my wedding ring.

It was tight from the cold and it took a moment.

I walked past Summer's outstretched hand and put the ring on the blanket over Donovan's knee.

"I'm filing for divorce," I said. "You can tell the board that as well."

Nobody said anything.

Donovan looked at the ring and then at me, and for a second I thought he would say my name properly.

Odette said, "Donovan, don't."

He closed his mouth.

I turned around and walked out, and Summer followed me as far as the elevator.

"Kate, he's been so frightened," she said, with a hand on my sleeve. "Please. Come back and sit down. We can fix this."

"Let go of me, Summer."

She did, and she smiled at me, and the doors closed.

My hands were shaking now that nobody could see them.

I took the black card out of my bra and turned it under the elevator light.

I had only glanced at it on the dock.

The gold line of print along the edge was small and very neat, in the same hand throughout.

PLEDGE: T. MARRIN, LIVING.

SIGNED: L. RASK.

HUSBAND OF THE PLEDGE: C. RASK.

DELIVERED BY: W. KETTERING.

The last signature was a loop I had seen on seven birthday cards and my own wedding programme.

I read the names down the edge of the card four times.

Then the doors opened on the lobby, and I walked out with the card in my fist.

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