Chapter 9: Bail

The holding cell smelled like bleach and old coffee.

I sat on the metal bench with my knees pulled up and my cardigan around me, and I did not cry.

I had done my crying in the first year, and then I had stopped.

At ten past two in the morning a guard unlocked the door.

"Eastwick. Someone posted your bail."

I thought it was a mistake.

Nobody had my number, and nobody was left to ask.

They gave me back a clear plastic bag with my belt, my glasses, and a single folded square of card.

I took the card and held it against my chest.

Christian was waiting in the lobby under the fluorescent lights.

He wore the same shirt from the brunch, wrinkled and open at the throat, and he looked like he hadn't sat down in sixteen hours.

For a moment we just looked at each other.

"My lawyer says the order is real," he said.

"Giselle filed it four years and five months ago. I signed a paper that I don't remember."

"I know."

"You said it in front of forty people."

"I said it because it's true."

"You let me," he said, and his voice cracked in the middle. "You let me touch you."

"I let you," I said. "I wanted to. I wanted it more than I've wanted anything."

He turned his face away.

Out in the parking lot the air was cold and smelled of rain.

He opened the car door and I got in, and we drove a long time without speaking.

He stopped at a hotel off the highway, the kind with a neon sign and a carport.

I didn't ask why.

He paid for the room in cash, and we walked up the outside stairs side by side, not touching.

He closed the door and stood with his back against it.

"Convince me," he said.

I took the folded card from my pocket and held it out.

His hands weren't steady when he opened it.

It was the pale blue hospital card with two tiny inked footprints, the heel creases and the toes.

Beneath them in black ballpoint were the words Baby Girl Thorsby, March 11, 7 lb 2 oz.

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