Chapter 12: The Hold

I was dressed in two minutes.

Ansel buttoned his shirt beside me without a word, and we went down the stairs together in the dark.

Ruth was already at the front door in her bathrobe, with her glasses on and one hand on the chain.

"I'll read the paper before anybody comes in," she said through the gap. "I'm sixty-six and I can read a warrant."

"Ma'am," said the voice outside. "It isn't a warrant. It's a court order."

"Then you can pass it through."

A pause.

A folded paper came through the gap.

Ruth read it under the hall light, and her mouth thinned.

She handed it to me.

It was two pages, with a judge's signature in blue ink at the bottom and a stamp from nine-forty the night before.

It was a request for an emergency evaluation of Leona Marsh.

The request was signed by Hugh Marsh, trustee.

It said I had approached my former fiancé on a public street on Thursday afternoon, shouting and following him, in violation of an existing order.

It said I was refusing sleep and food, and that I was living with a relative who was "unable to control" me.

"This is Newbury Street," I said. "This is the video turned inside out."

"It's a judge's signature," said the voice outside, more quietly. "I'm sorry, ma'am. We don't decide it. The hospital does."

I looked at Ansel.

He was standing very still beside the coat rack.

His jaw was hard, and I could feel what it was costing him not to say it.

I shook my head slightly.

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