Keep It, We Don't Need It Anymore novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Welfare Check

Wyatt sends an officer and Carissa to Marit's door with Poppy's rabbit, and the report says the mother has a history of overreacting.

Marit had Poppy on a kitchen stool by two o'clock, eating a grilled cheese cut into four triangles.

She did not ask me one question until the plate was empty.

Then she poured me coffee, sat down across the table, and folded her hands.

"He said you'd had a breakdown," she told me. "He called at six sharp. He said you were not thinking clearly and that I should keep you calm and call him the minute you got here."

"Did you call him?"

"I hung up on him." She sipped her own coffee. "Then I put clean sheets on the guest bed."

I put my face in my hands for one second. Marit let me.

At six that evening, the doorbell rang.

I opened it myself.

A police officer stood on the crooked porch with a tablet under his arm. Behind him, with her ponytail swinging, was Carissa.

She held a paper bag in one hand and a plastic container in the other.

"Hi, mama," she said, in the voice she used on Poppy's birthdays. "I'm so sorry about this. I told him it wasn't necessary."

"Ma'am, I'm here for a welfare check," the officer said. "Your husband reported that you took a four-year-old out of the hospital against medical advice. I need to see the child."

"I didn't take her anywhere against advice."

"Then this will be quick."

Poppy came down the hallway in her socks.

She saw Carissa and her whole face opened.

"Cissa!"

She ran straight past me and hit Carissa's legs with both arms.

Carissa crouched and hugged her, and her eyes found mine over my daughter's shoulder. They were soft and wet and entirely kind.

"Hi, my sweet girl. I brought your pajamas, and the cookies we made. The ones with the sprinkles."

My chest went tight. That was the part I had not planned for.

Poppy loved her. Of course she did. Carissa had been in our kitchen two nights a week for a year, and I had been grateful.

The officer looked at Poppy, who was pink, alert and chewing a cookie.

"She seems well," he said. "Do you have anything showing she was released?"

"Yes."

I had put the folder on top of Marit's refrigerator. I took it down and handed him Jonas's discharge orders.

He read every line. He read the signature at the bottom twice.

"Dr. Berglund, medical director of the ER," he said. "Released at one p.m. with follow-up in three days." He looked at me. "That's not against advice, ma'am. That's by the book."

"I know."

"Your husband told dispatch otherwise."

"I know that, too."

Marit stepped into the doorway beside me.

"Officer, would you like some coffee?" she said. "I'm only asking so you stay on this porch and I can watch you not take my niece's child."

"No, ma'am. Thank you."

Carissa set the plastic container on the hall table.

"It's soup," she said. "Chicken and rice. It's still warm."

"Thank you," I said, because the officer was watching.

Marit picked up the container, walked it to the kitchen, and I heard the sink running a moment later.

The officer cleared his throat and stepped outside to make a note on his tablet.

Carissa came a step closer. She lowered her voice so only I could hear.

"Nina."

"What?"

"Can I be honest?" Her eyes filled. She was very good at it. "He already has the lawyer. He met with him in January. Please just come home before this gets ugly. He'll forgive all of it. He always does."

January.

It was March.

My husband had hired a lawyer, and nobody had told me.

"You know a lot about his schedule," I said.

"I'm his assistant." She smiled with trembling lips. "It's my job to know."

"What's the lawyer for, Carissa?"

"I just don't want you to get hurt."

"What's the lawyer for?"

She glanced at Poppy sitting on the hall floor with the cookie, and her smile did not change.

"Come home," she whispered. "Please. Wyatt scores things, you know that. It's how he copes. It isn't personal."

"It was personal at two in the morning."

"You're exhausted," she said gently. "That's all he's saying. That you're exhausted."

I stared at her. She had said the same word he had.

The officer came back in.

"Okay," he said. "I'm closing the check. The child is fine, the discharge papers are in order, and there's no reason to remove anyone tonight." He looked at his tablet. "I have to leave a copy with you, for your own records."

He handed me a printed page.

I read it standing in Marit's hallway, with Poppy tugging at the hem of my sweater.

It listed the time, the address and the child's name.

Under Narrative, the last line read:

"Husband states that mother has a long history of overreacting to normal childhood illness."

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