After My Miscarriage, My Husband Locked Me Out novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Benefit

Shelby set the gray phone on the table and pressed play.

A fork scraped a plate.

Then a phone buzzed against wood, over and over, and Chandler's voice said, "That's Roz again. Fourth time."

"Turn it over," said Gwendolyn.

"She says Hannah's bleeding. She says come now."

"Let her."

"Mom."

"Chandler, sweetheart, you'd sit in a waiting room for a baby that was never going to stay. It's for the best."

There was the sound of a chair, and then a glass set down.

"Pass the potatoes," Chandler said.

The recording went on for another minute, forks and dishes and the radio, and nobody on it said her name again.

Shelby stopped it.

Nobody spoke for a while.

Roz was crying openly, with her glasses in her fist.

I did not cry.

I felt cold and very clear.

"Send me that file," I said. "Don't send it to anyone else."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Nothing yet."

"Hannah," Roz said thickly. "Tomorrow night is the hospital benefit. I have a table. I've had it since June."

"I know."

"Everyone with a say in your life will be in that ballroom. The board, the donors, his boss." She wiped her face. "I'm not saying wear it like a medal. I'm saying be seen."

I went to the benefit.

It was held in the ballroom of the big hotel downtown, under chandeliers, with a silent auction along one wall and a string quartet.

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