Three Breakdowns A Year Was All I Was Allowed novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Uncut
The man in the suit climbed the three steps to the stage and stopped a respectful distance away.
"Mrs. Pelham, I'm with the county crisis service. We've received a statement of concern about you."
"May I see it?"
He hesitated, and then he held out the clipboard.
I took it with my left hand and walked to the podium with it.
Christian made a small step toward me, and the nearer deputy shifted his weight, and Christian stopped.
The microphone was still live.
At the back of the room, by the production table, the rep had not moved her hand from the board.
"It says Emergency Detention, Statement of Concern," I read aloud. "It says, on December sixth, the subject told her husband she did not want to be here."
I looked up at the room.
"On December sixth, I was at a kitchen table on Dayton Street eating soup. Nobody was there but a man who builds cabinets. I didn't say that sentence to anyone."
"Mrs. Pelham," said the man in the suit.
"May I finish?"
He did not say no.
The woman in the navy coat had come up the side steps behind him.
"I told you she was calm," she said to him, not quietly.
"Are you thinking of hurting yourself?" he asked me, because it was his job to ask, and I heard that he meant it.
"No."
"You're crying."
I had not known I was.
It was running down my face, hot, in front of four hundred people and a camera.
"I'm crying," I said. "It's allowed."
The silence in the room changed.
"My husband gave me three a year," I said, "and counted them in a notebook. Tonight I'm having as many as I want."
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