My Husband Dismissed Seven Ransom Calls as AI novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: What He Gave Up
He read it aloud, sitting on the edge of our bed in his boxers, and the board's apology took four lines.
The raise took one.
"Well," I said when he finished.
"Well," said Ansel.
"What do you want to do?"
He folded the letter in half, and then again.
"I want to say no," he said. "I want to say it to their faces."
"Then say it to their faces."
"Will you come?"
I looked at him for a long moment, at the stubble, and the careful way he had asked.
"I'll sit at the back," I said. "I'm not there to hold your hand."
"I know."
"I'm there to watch."
"That's better," he said, and almost smiled.
The board of Ardmore General met in a room on the fifth floor with a long oak table and a photograph of the founder on the wall.
Nine people sat around it.
The chief of staff sat at the far end, gray-faced, with a glass of water he did not touch.
I took a chair against the wall beside Beth, who had come to see it too, and who had brought the baby carrier and a bag of crackers.
"Dr. Erickson," said the board chair, an elderly woman with silver hair. "We were glad you accepted our invitation."
"I haven't accepted," Ansel said.
He remained standing at the foot of the table.
"I came to answer the letter."
The chair folded her hands.
"We'd hoped you would see it as a gesture. What happened in that auditorium shook this hospital. We want you to know that we stand behind you."
"Where were you three months ago?"
It was said quietly, and the whole room heard it.
"When I played a recording in the NICU, the chief of staff put me on leave and sent Janelle Pratt home with sympathy. A porter told the hospital the blood was never called, and nobody asked why."
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