My Family Sold Me for Their Favourite Daughter novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Doctor

A family friend calls her scars self-injury and offers a voluntary stay, and she overhears the hold paperwork is already prepared. At 2 a.m. she takes the car key and Callie is waiting in the garage.

Callie unlocked the door at eight with a tray of eggs and toast.

"I made them myself," she said. "You used to like them runny."

"I still do."

I ate every bite while she watched, because Dray had taught me never to leave food on a plate in front of someone who might take it.

She sat on the edge of Benton's bed and chattered about the garden, the Hope Fund gala in two weeks, and a trip to Lisbon she and Benton had once planned.

She did not say sorry once.

At nine the doorbell rang, and I heard a man's voice in the hall, low and easy.

The doctor was past seventy, with a cardigan and a leather bag and soft hands.

My mother sat in the chair by the window and held her purse in her lap.

Benton stood against the wall.

"Willa," the doctor said, "I'm so glad you're safe. I've known your family for thirty years."

"Then you know why I don't want to be alone in a room with you," I said.

He smiled and did not answer.

"I'll leave the door open."

He took my pulse and shone a light in my eyes.

Then he asked me to hold out my arms.

The rope scars lay across both wrists in white bands.

He turned my left arm over and ran a thumb along the burn.

"How did this happen?"

"Eldon Dray put a cigarette out on me," I said. "The second winter, for stealing bread."

"And these?"

"Rope. He tied me to a radiator when I tried the door."

He nodded slowly, with a look I had seen on Dray's face when a buyer asked a question he'd answered before.

"These marks are consistent with a certain kind of self-injury," he said, and looked at my mother.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not accusing you of anything, Willa. After prolonged trauma, the mind often rewrites what the body did."

"My body did nothing. A man tied me up."

"Of course," he said. "Of course he did."

He pressed two fingers along my ribs and I flinched.

"Cracked, healed over," he said. "Probably a fall."

"A boot."

"A fall," my mother said.

He lifted my shirt at the back and pressed his thumb into my lower spine, and I bit the inside of my cheek.

"Any pain here?"

My kidneys ached, hot and heavy, under his thumb.

I thought of the eighteen percent, and of what my family would do with a number like that.

"No," I said.

"Hm. Stress, then. It often shows in the back."

He put his hands in his lap and cleared his throat.

"Willa, I'd like to recommend a short stay at a residence I trust, in Chesterland. Voluntary. Two weeks, a bed, regular meals and someone to talk to."

"Will I have my phone?"

"After the first few days."

"Will my husband be allowed to visit?"

"Whenever he likes."

"Then no," I said.

My mother's purse clicked shut.

"Willa, he's trying to help you."

"I know what trying to help looks like, Mother. I've been treated by experts."

The doctor looked at Benton.

Benton nodded.

"Then we'll let you think about it," the doctor said, closing his bag. "Rest, please. And don't hesitate to call me if the nightmares worsen."

He went down with my mother, and I listened at the top of the stairs.

The kitchen was far enough away that I could only hear fragments.

The doctor's voice was clear, though, when he stopped in the hall below me.

"If she acts out, you won't have long. The paperwork is already prepared. I need only sign the certificate."

"Seventy-two hours?" Benton asked.

"Seventy-two, then we petition for the rest."

"She won't act out," my mother said. "She's too smart for that."

"Then I'm afraid you'll have to help her," the doctor said.

I went back to the bedroom and sat on the bed, and my hands did not shake.

I had spent seven years being useful to a man who bought women.

I knew a purchase when I saw one being made.

They did not want me home.

They wanted me quiet, and a hospital would do as well as a bedroom.

I ate dinner that night at the long table under the Find Willa poster, and I said thank you for the roast and thank you for the dessert.

My mother's shoulders came down an inch.

Benton poured me a glass of wine that I did not drink.

At two in the morning I opened my eyes.

Benton had unlocked the bedroom door when he came to bed, sure that a woman who said thank you for the roast was tamed.

He lay on his side with his back to me, breathing evenly.

I slid out from under the blanket and crept down the stairs in the dark, one wall at a time.

In the kitchen the car keys hung on their hook by the pantry.

I took the Volvo's key and walked through the laundry room to the garage door.

I turned the handle.

The light came on.

Callie stood in the garage in a silk nightgown, with her arms crossed and her gold bracelet catching the bulb.

"Going somewhere?" she said.

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