After My Miscarriage, My Husband Locked Me Out novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Suspended

The hospital pulls Hannah from the floor on Chandler's complaint, and Cillian stops the hallway; the complaint is witnessed by Gwendolyn.

On Monday I went to work, because it was the only place left where I knew where everything was kept.

The ER was loud when I came through the ambulance doors.

Then it got quieter.

Two techs stopped talking at the supply cart and found something to count.

A resident looked at my face and looked away.

Someone had seen the video.

Everyone had seen the video.

I put my bag in my locker and tied my hair back and told myself the only thing I had to do today was take a patient's blood pressure.

Roz caught me at the nurses' station.

"Don't," she said, low. "Not yet. The nurse manager wants you in her office."

"I'm on the schedule."

"I know you are, baby. Go anyway."

The nurse manager had a woman from human resources sitting beside her, and a folder closed on the desk.

Nobody asked me to sit down.

"Hannah," the nurse manager said. "We received a written complaint Saturday afternoon."

"From who?"

The woman from human resources opened the folder.

"Your husband. He states that you have been taking medication from the unit stock for personal use, and that you've been impaired on shift."

I laughed.

It came out wrong, one short breath, and neither of them smiled.

"I was in a hospital bed on Thursday," I said. "I was bleeding on this floor on Wednesday."

"He also states that the pregnancy loss was, in his words, a convenient story." She did not look up. "Under policy, we have to place you on administrative leave while the cabinet audit runs. Seven to ten days."

"Convenient."

"I'm sorry. It's the policy."

"Then run the audit," I said. "Run it today. Search my locker. Search my bag."

"Hannah, that isn't necessary."

"It is for him."

I got up and walked out and down the hall to my locker, with both of them behind me, and I opened it.

I turned my bag upside down on the bench.

A hairbrush, a granola bar, a plastic bag with discharge papers in it.

A bottle of ibuprofen, the over-the-counter kind, and a small prescription for the cramping with my own name on the label.

Everyone on the floor was now standing in the hallway.

Nobody was pretending to work.

I kept my voice flat. "That's everything. Count it."

The woman from human resources opened her mouth.

"That is enough," said a man behind me.

It was Dr. Tarleton.

I had seen him in the ER for two years, a tall attending who drank his coffee cold and never raised his voice.

He had also been the one standing at my bedside on Thursday when I woke up in recovery with my hand in his.

He didn't say anything about that now.

He walked between me and the two women and stopped.

"I treated Ms. Birkett on Wednesday night," he said. "I wrote the orders. I did the procedure on Thursday. Her chart is in the system, and it says she miscarried at fourteen weeks."

"Dr. Tarleton, this is a personnel matter," the nurse manager said.

"It's a medical record. A man who was not in the building has just called it a convenient story in a document you're holding."

"We can't discuss it in the hallway."

"Then discuss it here, in front of the staff who covered for her on Wednesday." His voice never rose. "Every one of them can tell you what she looked like."

The nurse manager did not read it.

Roz stepped out of the crowd and stood beside me.

Then a tech did, and a respiratory therapist, and the resident who had looked away.

By the time the hallway stopped moving, there was a whole circle of colleagues standing with me, and none of them said a word.

The woman from human resources closed the folder.

"The audit proceeds," she said. "Paid leave. That's the best I can do."

"That's fine," I said.

I picked up my belongings one at a time and put them back in the bag.

When I looked up, Dr. Tarleton was still there, one hand in the pocket of his white coat.

"Hannah," he said quietly. "Are you all right?"

"No."

"Good. I didn't want to hear that you were."

It was almost funny. I almost smiled.

The nurse manager held out the folder for me to take, with the complaint on top.

"You're entitled to a copy."

I read the last page standing there in the hallway.

Chandler's signature was at the bottom, in his neat blue pen.

Under it was a line for a witness.

Gwendolyn Callister had signed it in her careful, looping hand.

It was dated Friday, at two o'clock in the afternoon.

That was two hours before I had been discharged.

They had written it before they locked me out.

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