He Let Our Baby Die Over a Hospital Bill novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Fifty-Fifty

Nadine has Holden called back and tears into him at the nurses' station while Kaylin watches, Abe sits with her through the night, and at 2 a.m. EvenUp posts a grief statement with a photo of her hospital bracelet.

I read the gray letters until the screen went dark in my hand.

Split 50/50.

Then I pressed the call button.

The night nurse who came was young and tired.

"Call my husband," I said. "Tell him to come back up."

She looked at the door, then at me.

"Security walked him out three hours ago."

"I know. I want him back. Not in this room. In the hall."

She went to the desk and made the call.

I heard her say, "She's asking for you, Mr. Keefe," in the careful voice they use for families.

He came back in twenty minutes.

She put me in a wheelchair with my IV pole hooked to the back. Every inch of my stomach screamed where they'd cut me open.

She wheeled me out to the nurses' station.

Holden was standing by the counter in his quarter-zip.

Kaylin waited in the doorway to the stairwell, her phone held up at chest height.

Three nurses were charting.

Holden crouched in front of my chair so our eyes were level.

"Babe. You're upset. That's okay."

"You moved the baby fund this morning."

"I reallocated it."

"To her apartment."

He glanced back at Kaylin, then at me, patient.

"To an investment property. Larimer Street is up eleven percent in two years. When it sells, you'll get half the appreciation. It's in the app."

"Half the appreciation."

"Fifty-fifty. Like always."

One of the nurses stopped typing.

"Our daughter is downstairs in a drawer," I said. "What's her half?"

He sighed through his nose.

"Nadine. That's not fair, and you know it isn't. Nobody could have known the cord would do that."

"The midwife knew. She said don't move me."

"Midwives are cautious. It's their business model."

I looked past Holden at the doorway.

Kaylin was wearing a cream blazer after midnight. Her lashes were perfect.

"Kaylin."

She lowered the phone an inch. "Yes?"

"How's the view from 21B?"

She smiled.

"It's not finished yet. We close next month."

"Then here's something for the paperwork," I said. "You're going to sleep in my daughter's crib money. Every night. That's what's holding up your ceiling."

Her smile stayed, but her face went pink under the makeup.

Holden stood up.

"That's enough. You're making a scene, babe, and these people are working."

"Give me your phone."

"Why?"

"I want to see the transfer myself. On yours."

He hesitated, because there were six people watching, and then he unlocked it and handed it to me with a little shrug.

The red biohazard bin was bolted to the wall beside my chair.

I dropped his phone through the flap.

It landed on something soft and wet with a sound I'll hear for the rest of my life.

Nobody moved.

Holden looked at the bin for a long second.

"That phone has the company on it."

"Then reconcile it," I said.

The charge nurse came around the counter. She didn't hurry.

"Mr. Keefe, that bin gets incinerated. I can't open it for you. Policy."

Kaylin made a small noise.

Holden straightened his glasses.

He looked at the nurses one at a time, and found nobody on his side.

"We'll talk when you're rested," he said to me.

He walked to the elevator. Kaylin went with him, typing fast.

The nurse wheeled me back to my room.

A little before one there was a knock on the open door.

Abe was standing there in a gray hoodie and jeans, with his hospital badge turned around backwards on its clip.

"My shift ended at midnight," he said. "I was still in the locker room when I heard about the bin."

He held up two paper cups.

"Vending machine cocoa. It's terrible. I didn't know what else they'd let you have."

"Sit down," I said.

He pulled the plastic chair to the side of the bed and sat in it.

He didn't tell me it would be okay.

He just sat there drinking terrible cocoa with his big scarred forearms on his knees.

After a while I said, "She had his fingers."

"She had your chin," he said. "I noticed when I wrapped her."

I cried then. The kind that hurts the stitches.

He handed me tissues one at a time and didn't look away.

When I could breathe, I asked him for my phone.

I called Gina.

"Deenie? It's one in the morning. Is she here? Is she perfect?"

I couldn't say it.

Abe held out his hand. I gave him the phone.

He went into the hall and said it for me, quietly.

I heard Gina say a word that would have gotten her fired from the billing office.

Then he came back and gave me the phone.

"I'm coming," Gina said. "I've got the kid in his pajamas. I'm coming right now."

Abe stood up and pulled the chair back to the wall.

"I'll tell the front desk to let her in," he said. "You should try to sleep."

I didn't sleep.

At two in the morning my phone lit up on the blanket.

It was a link from Gina, with no words, just six exclamation marks.

EvenUp's official account had posted a black square with white text.

Under it was a photo of my wrist on the arm of a wheelchair, my plastic bracelet turned so you could read KEEFE, NADINE.

Kaylin had taken it from the doorway.

The caption was signed by Holden.

"Tonight we lost our daughter. Even in loss, we split the weight."

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