The Secret That Broke Us novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: The Recording

Kristin had cut the recording down to under a minute.

She had kept my voice saying, "Sir, I'm going to stay on the line," and "Don't stop," and "Keep going."

She had kept Nate crying, "June, please."

She had cut every word in between, including all of mine that told him how to save his daughter.

Over the top, in white letters, she had typed: My best friend heard my baby almost die and didn't say a word.

By 6 a.m. it had four hundred thousand views.

I read the comments sitting up in the hospital bed with Anders on my chest, and I didn't cry.

I was past that.

Most of them were people I had never met, and most of them wanted my head.

She was cold.

You can hear it.

Imagine doing that to your own best friend.

Lena took the phone out of my hand.

"Enough," she said.

"It's a lie."

"It's a lie with four hundred thousand people in it."

At 6:30 my phone rang.

It was the day supervisor, the big calm woman from the dispatch center.

"June," she said, "are you sitting down?"

"I'm in a hospital bed."

"Good. Don't get up. I've got the whole floor here. Both shifts. Nobody went home."

I heard a chair scrape, and then a lot of people clearing their throats.

"We've seen the video," she said. "I've been doing this twenty-two years. I've reviewed that recording four times since Tuesday, because it's the cleanest newborn CPR walkthrough I have ever heard in my life. We're using it to train."

I didn't say anything.

"Every one of us would take that call from you," she said. "We'd put our kids on that call. Do you hear me? Nobody on this floor believes a word of it. I'm sorry I didn't say so on Tuesday."

"You didn't know," I said.

"I was on shift that night," she said, "and I should have walked over to your desk and put a hand on you. That's on me."

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