After My Miscarriage, My Husband Locked Me Out novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Locked Out
Hannah arrives home from the hospital in her scrubs and her husband shuts the door on her in front of his office, then her insurance is cancelled.
My husband's whole office watched him shut our front door in my face.
It was Friday, a quarter to eight, and every window of the house was lit.
Cars lined both sides of the street.
I had come straight from the hospital in my teal scrubs, with the plastic bracelet still on my wrist.
Two days earlier I had lost our baby at fourteen weeks, on a stretcher in my own emergency room.
My coworkers had held my hands.
My husband had not come.
On Wednesday night he had texted: "Can't leave the client dinner, babe. Mom's checking in on you."
This morning, when I told him they were discharging me at four, he had written: "Rest up. I've got everything handled at home."
I paid the driver and stood on the sidewalk with my plastic bag of belongings.
There was a banner in the front window, congratulating him on his promotion.
I had forgotten the party was tonight.
The mailbox was stuffed full, so I pulled the mail out and tucked it under my arm.
On top was a bank envelope addressed to me alone.
Chandler had never opened one of those in all the years he had lived there. He called the mortgage my department.
I climbed the porch steps. Through the glass I could see people holding wine, and a tray of little crab cakes going past.
I put my key in the lock.
It went in and would not turn.
The brass looked new. The old one had been dull and scratched from my grandmother's years of using it.
I rang the bell.
The laughing in the hall stopped, and then the door opened about the width of one man's shoulder.
Chandler stood in the gap in a pressed blue shirt, holding a drink.
"Hannah." He smiled, the warm tired smile he used on clients. "You're here. Let me look at you."
"My key doesn't work."
"I had the locks changed this morning."
"Why?"
"Because you've been unwell." He said it loudly, over his shoulder, to the hall. "It was for your safety."
Behind him I could see his boss, a man I had met twice, with a plate in his hand.
I saw Chandler's mother in the doorway to the dining room, in her good gray cardigan and her pearl earrings.
I saw a woman by the stairs lift her phone and point it at me.
"Chandler," his boss said. "Is everything okay?"
"It's fine, sir. Hannah's been having a hard time since the breakdown at work." Chandler lowered his voice into something sad and patient. "We're trying to get her some help."
I had not had a breakdown.
I had bled through two sets of scrubs in front of a waiting room.
"Chandler, I lost the baby on Wednesday," I said. "I was in the hospital. You told them I had a breakdown?"
Nobody in the hall moved.
His mother, Gwendolyn, crossed to him and put a hand on his arm.
"Sweetheart," she said to me, in her softest voice. "You're exhausted. Chandler's arranged a room for you at the Hampton Inn, just for the weekend. It's for the best."
"I want to come into my house."
"Not like this." Chandler glanced at the phone by the stairs and then back at me, and his jaw set. "Not tonight, Hannah. You'll embarrass everyone."
A woman came up behind his shoulder.
It was Shelby, from his office.
She had been dropping off soup and casseroles at our door all month, and she had sat with me on the couch the night the bleeding started.
She held a glass of sparkling water in one hand. The other rested on her lower back.
"Hannah, oh honey," she said, and her eyes were wet. "Chandler, she's freezing. Let her at least sit down."
"Shelby, go back inside."
She hesitated, and then she did.
Chandler looked at me for one more second.
"Go to the hotel," he said quietly. "I'll come see you tomorrow."
Then he closed the door.
I heard the deadbolt slide.
Music started up again inside, just a little too loud.
I stood on my own porch with my hand still out where the knob had been.
Nobody came back to the window.
I went down the steps.
At the end of the driveway, beside the trash cans, sat four black garbage bags tied at the top.
A sleeve of my blue winter coat hung out of the nearest one.
My things had been packed while I was still on the ward.
He had not been handling it at home. He had been handling me.
I could have screamed. I could have kicked the door until the neighbors came out.
That was exactly what he had told them I would do.
So I picked up the bag with the coat in it, and I walked away from the house with my head up.
I was at the corner when my phone buzzed.
An email from the insurance company: "Your coverage has ended. Reason: policyholder request, effective today."
Chandler was the policyholder.
I had a follow-up appointment on Monday, and the bracelet on my wrist still said I was a patient.
Now I had no insurance at all.
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