My Husband Hung Up on Me the Night I Gave Birth novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Protocol

The pen hung in the air, and my husband did not take it.

"I can't sign this, Gwen," Ryan said.

"Ryan..."

"It's procedure." His voice went flat and official, the voice he used with witnesses who wanted to be helpful. "An abandoned infant goes to the pediatric ER and gets logged before any paper gets signed. That's the law. If I skip it, my captain pulls my badge, and then nobody is left to fight for her."

"I'll take her to the ER myself."

"You found her. You're a witness. Witnesses don't carry evidence."

"She's a baby, not evidence."

"Tonight she is," he said gently. "That's how I protect her."

A long pause. I held my breath.

"Then I'll come with you," Gwen said.

"Nobody rides with the officer who takes custody. You know that. You'll give a statement in the morning, and I'll tell them you did everything right."

He was good, I thought.

He was very good, and I wished he'd been that good on the phone.

"You'll bring her back," Gwen said, quietly.

"If the hospital clears her, I'll bring her to you myself."

It was a lie, and she accepted it, because she believed he was hers.

I heard the blanket shift, the creak of a car seat being pulled from a closet.

"I keep one for my cousin's twins," Gwen said, and I wrote that down in my head with every other thing she'd said that night.

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