His Healing Touch novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Ledger
Hallie puts eight years of paid bills on her husband's party table and walks out, then catches a boy in traffic and he goes still under her hand.
I carried the ledger into my husband's partnership party in a grocery bag.
It was a blue spiral notebook, soft at the corners, eight years of my handwriting.
The Harborview Pediatric Neurology lobby was full of white flowers and people in good suits.
A banner over the reception desk said "Welcome, Dr. Bradley Whitlow, Senior Partner."
I had come to surprise him with the news that I had saved enough for the down payment on a house.
I was wearing my one good dress under my navy coat.
The receptionist told me he was in his office with a donor.
I thanked her and walked down the hall with the bag in my hand.
His door was open six inches.
Through the gap I saw Bradley's back, and his hands on a woman in a red wool coat.
He had her pushed against his desk.
Her fingers were in his hair, and she was laughing.
"Tell me you're happy," Bradley said into her neck.
"Tell me she still doesn't know," the woman answered.
"Hallie thinks I'm in surgery consults on Thursdays."
"Poor Hallie."
"Dee, she's furniture. She's been furniture since I made fellow."
I stood in the hall and did not breathe.
Eight years of marriage, and he had never once kissed me with his whole body leaning in.
I could have turned around.
I could have gone home and cried in the kitchen and waited for him to confess.
Instead I pushed the door open and let it hit the wall.
The woman turned her face into his shoulder so I only saw red wool and blonde hair.
Bradley jumped back and fixed his tie with both hands.
"Hallie," he said. "What are you doing here?"
"Bringing you something."
I walked past the woman and set the grocery bag on his desk.
Then I walked out of the office, down the hall, and into the lobby where forty people held champagne.
Bradley came after me with his smile already on.
"Honey, you're upset, let's not do this here."
"Do what here?" I said.
Everyone turned to look.
I took the notebook out of the bag and opened it to the first page.
"This is what I paid for your medical school loans," I said, loud enough for the back of the room.
"Two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars, over eight years, from my salary and my savings."
Somebody put a glass down.
"I paid your rent in residency."
"I paid for the fellowship application and the flights to every interview."
"I gave up my own clinic job so you could take a position in Boston."
Bradley's smile went flat.
"Hallie, stop."
"I came tonight to tell you I saved enough for a house," I said.
"I found you with your hands on a woman in your office instead."
I set the ledger in the middle of the dessert table, beside a cake that said "Congratulations, Bradley."
"You can keep the cake," I said. "I want the money back."
A partner's wife put her hand over her mouth.
Bradley leaned close and spoke through his teeth.
"You're nothing without me. You quit your career, you have no friends and you have no money. Walk out that door and you'll have nowhere to go."
I took off my wedding ring and put it on top of the cake.
It sank a little into the white frosting.
"Then it's a good thing I'm used to carrying things myself," I said.
I walked out through the revolving doors and into the rain.
I got as far as the crosswalk before I heard the brakes.
A small boy in a green raincoat had run out from the hospital garage and into the road.
A delivery van was sliding toward him on the wet street.
I dropped my bag and ran.
I got one arm around his waist and pulled him against my chest as the van's bumper missed my coat by an inch.
He screamed, a high, wordless sound, and his whole body went rigid in my arms.
His hands were flapping at his ears.
I knew that sound.
I had trained as a pediatric occupational therapist and worked in a clinic until I met Bradley.
I sat down on the curb with him in my lap, got one palm flat between his shoulder blades, and pressed.
Slow and steady.
"I've got you," I said. "You're loud and it's all right, I've got you."
His breathing broke, and slowed, and slowed again.
His fists unclenched against my coat.
Footsteps hit the pavement behind us, fast.
A tall man in a charcoal suit dropped to one knee in the puddle and stopped dead.
He was staring at his son's face against my shoulder.
"Don't," he said quietly. "Please don't let go of him."
"I wasn't going to."
He looked at my hand, still flat on the boy's back.
"Nobody has been able to touch Freddie for two years," he said.
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