He Let Our Daughter Die for Twenty-Three Dollars novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Lunch

Brooke finds the hidden formula and Sheldon pours out all twenty-four cans in front of the family, saying she eats what he buys, while Carol slips Annabel a secret twenty and Brooke feeds the baby a bottle thickened with cereal; at three in the morning the baby's lips are blue.

The back door clicked shut just as Sheldon reached the kitchen.

I pressed the clip of the pen twice and slipped it into my cardigan pocket.

Dennis came in loud, with a bakery box in each hand.

"There's the new mama! Come here, kiddo."

He hugged me hard and kissed my hair, and I let him.

Carol came behind him with a casserole and took the baby straight out of my arms.

"Oh, look at those cheeks," she said. "Look at my girl."

Brooke breezed in last, with her son on her hip and her phone already up.

"The trust papers are framed," she told Sheldon. "I'm hanging them in the nursery."

"You should," Sheldon said, and the whole family laughed.

Dennis poured sparkling wine into four glasses and handed me water.

"To family," he said. "And to Sheldon, for making it real."

I held the water and watched them clink.

Brooke went to the laundry room to look for a clean towel for her son's hands.

"Annabel," she called. "Why are there boxes behind the detergent?"

I had thought nobody would ever look there.

She came back dragging a carton by its flap.

Inside were twelve cans of the formula Colter had brought.

"Fortified," Brooke read from the label. "That's thirty-four dollars a can, Sheldon. Look at this."

Sheldon set down his glass.

"Where did these come from?"

"A formula rep delivered them," I said. "The brand sends samples to the hospital."

"Twenty-four cans is not a sample."

"I didn't buy them."

"You didn't have to." He lifted the first can out of the carton. "You asked a nurse. You asked a rep. You'll ask anyone but me."

"Sheldon, I only asked for what the doctor said."

"She eats what I buy," he said.

He pulled the tab off the can and tipped the powder into the sink.

Then he turned on the tap.

I stood there while it washed away.

He opened the second can, then the third, and Dennis shifted in his chair and said, "Come on, son, that's a waste."

"It's a lesson," Sheldon said.

Brooke carried the second carton over to him herself.

She was smiling.

By the twelfth can I had stopped counting, because I already knew the total.

Eight hundred and sixteen dollars, going down the drain in front of everyone I had ever called family.

In my pocket, the pen kept recording.

"The rules are the rules," Sheldon said as he opened the last can. "A baby doesn't change them."

I wanted to scream.

Instead I said, "Understood."

Carol put her hand on my arm.

"Annabel, honey, come help me with the oven."

She steered me into the pantry and shut the door behind us.

She was crying, quietly, as she always did.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. He's under so much pressure."

Then she pressed something into my palm and folded my fingers over it.

It was a twenty-dollar bill, warm from her pocket.

"Buy her the good kind. Don't tell Dennis, he'd tell Sheldon."

I stared at it.

For two years Carol had been the only one who ever slipped me anything.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"That's what family is for." She wiped her eyes. "Now go see to your girl."

I tucked the bill into my bra and went back to the dining room.

The room was too quiet.

Brooke sat at the table with my daughter in her lap and a bottle in her hand.

A spoon stood in the bottle.

"What is that?" I said.

"A little rice cereal." Brooke shook it. "I did it with my son. She'll sleep right through the night."

"She was born six weeks early. The doctor said formula and nothing else."

"The doctor says a lot," Sheldon said.

He didn't look up from his plate.

"Let Brooke help. She's family."

"Sheldon, please."

"Sit down, Annabel."

Dennis cleared his throat and studied his casserole.

I took one step toward Brooke, and Sheldon put his hand flat on the table.

It was a small gesture, and it stopped me.

My daughter took the bottle, and drank, and drank.

Brooke smiled up at me.

"See? She loves it."

The baby coughed once, wetly, and spat up on Brooke's sleeve.

"Gas," Brooke said, and wiped it off with a napkin.

I took my daughter and held her against my shoulder until she settled.

Her breathing sounded thick and slow.

"You're so thin, Annabel," Brooke said, bouncing her son. "Sheldon is so generous. I'd be grateful if I were you."

I looked at my husband.

He was cutting his chicken.

The lunch lasted two more hours.

Nobody spoke about the formula again.

When they left, Carol kissed my cheek at the door and whispered, "Be patient, honey."

Sheldon locked the gate behind them.

He went to bed without a word.

I lay beside my daughter's bassinet, a hand on her chest, counting her breaths.

At three in the morning, they stopped.

I touched her face.

Her lips were blue.

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