Chapter 5: The Waiting Room

Otis drove us uptown in the shop's delivery van, because Holden could track my phone but not a van that said HEARTH & HONEY in gold letters.

He parked at the curb outside my doctor's office, and Libby climbed down first.

"I'll be in the van," Otis said. "If anyone grabs you, hit the horn. It's very loud."

"Is that a promise?"

"It's a feature."

Libby took my arm, and we went in.

I had been coming to this waiting room for twenty-six weeks.

I knew every magazine on the table and the fish tank with the one angry orange fish.

The receptionist knew me too.

She stood up when she saw me and put a hand over her mouth.

"Mrs. Stroud, I'm so sorry about yesterday."

"I need my records," I said. "I'm taking them back."

"I can't give them to you. They've been released to the Stroud Private Clinic, by your authorization."

"Show me the authorization."

She hesitated, then turned her monitor toward me.

The form was dated November third.

The signature at the bottom was my name, GRETA H. STROUD, in blue ink, with a big loop on the G that I have never made in my life.

"I sign Greta Hensley Stroud," I said. "I've signed it that way since I was twenty-one. I've never used an H."

"I only process what comes in," she said, miserable.

"Print me a copy of it."

"I'm not allowed to."

"Then I'll film it."

I held up my new phone.

Libby stood next to me and held up hers.

The receptionist's face went pink, and the printer began to hum.

Behind me, a man cleared his throat.

"That's enough, Greta."

I turned around.

Holden was sitting in the corner by the fish tank in his charcoal overcoat with his hands folded on one knee.

Beside him sat his mother, in her pearls, with her purse on her lap.

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