We Called It Therapy After Dark novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Bed Four

Anja treats the woman who wrecked her marriage, catches her in a lie about the tape, and reads Kasper's text on the bed rail about a book called The Night Notebooks.

I put Siri in bed four, the only curtained bay left.

"Cramping or bleeding?" I asked.

"Both. It started in the car."

"How much?"

"A little. I don't know. Anja, don't leave."

I took her blood pressure and wrote the number on the chart.

My hands did the job.

They had done it for nine years, and they didn't ask whether I wanted to.

The charge nurse leaned in through the curtain.

"I can take her, if you want," she said quietly. "Nobody would blame you."

"I don't hand patients off."

"She isn't just a patient."

"Tonight she is."

She nodded and left.

Roan came in a minute later with a portable ultrasound cart and a face that gave nothing away.

"Ms. Fossum, I'm Dr. Avery. Any pain on one side?"

"The left. I think."

"Okay. Lie back for me."

He looked at me over her head. It was a short look, and it asked whether I wanted out.

I shook my head.

He ran the probe across her stomach, and the screen filled with grey.

Then a small bright flutter appeared in the middle of it.

"That's your heartbeat," Roan said. "Strong. One hundred and sixty."

Siri made a noise I had never heard from her, something between a sob and a laugh.

She put her hand over her mouth.

"It's okay?"

"It looks okay. Your cervix is closed and you're not bleeding much. I think you're dehydrated and very stressed."

"Stressed," Siri said, and cried harder.

Roan wrote something down.

"I'll call the on-call obstetrician," he said. "Anja, can you stay with her five minutes?"

He left and the curtain swung shut behind him.

It was just the two of us in a space the size of a closet.

I had not been alone in a room with Siri since the morning she helped me pick out my wedding shoes.

She wiped her face with the back of her wrist.

"I didn't know about the tape," she said. "I swear. He told me he'd cut it."

I put the blood pressure cuff back on its hook.

"Siri."

"I know it looks bad."

"You called me back that night," I said. "You were on the line when I cried. You hit record."

She went very still.

"I told you I was driving," I said. "You said, 'Take your time, I'm here.' That was your voice in the quiet part."

"Anja."

"You kept that recording for a month."

"He asked me to," she said. "He said it was for a story about caregivers. He said you'd be proud."

"And the green dress?"

She didn't answer.

"I don't understand you," I said. "I sat with you in the hospice when my mother died. You slept in my car for three days."

"I know."

"How long?"

"Since March," Siri whispered.

March.

I had been working six nights a week that month because Kasper said he wanted to buy a boat.

"I'm not going to yell at you," I said. "I'm on shift. You're my patient, and your baby has a heartbeat."

"That's more than I deserve."

"Yes," I said. "It is."

I turned to leave.

"Please don't tell him I came here," Siri said behind me.

"Why not?"

"He'll say I'm weak. He doesn't like when I'm weak."

I stopped with my hand on the curtain.

It was a strange thing to hear from the woman who had stood on a stage and clapped.

Then her phone lit up on the bed rail.

It lay face up on her folded coat.

The screen showed a message from a contact saved as G.

I should have looked away.

I did not.

"Did she sign? Good. Book contract Monday. THE NIGHT NOTEBOOKS, by Kasper Lindahl. Delete my last text."

The screen went dark.

Siri was staring at it too, her mouth open.

"Anja," she said. "That's not what you think."

"Then tell me what it is."

She pressed her lips together and said nothing.

Down the hall I heard the sliding doors open and a stretcher come in.

I let the curtain close behind me, and I went to work.

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