Chapter 15: Ask Her Yourself

I wrote the reply in the clinic parking lot, on my phone, with the dome light on.

Justin leaned on the Subaru's door and read it over my shoulder.

"You can't send that," he said. "A lawyer should look at it."

"I don't need a lawyer for the truth. I'm the one it's about."

"Susanna, the board reads every word and files it."

"Good. Then they'll read mine first."

I typed it plain.

I wrote that I was twenty-six, that I had lied to my mother, and that I had asked Dr. Hostetler for everything that happened in room three.

I wrote that no one had coerced me, and that the clinic had recorded me without telling me.

I signed it with my whole name, and I hit send before he could take the phone.

His shoulders dropped.

"That is the bravest and most reckless thing anyone has ever done to me," he said.

"Get in the car. You're driving."

"You said you'd drive."

"I'm too angry. Drive."

He drove.

On Wednesday morning a gray sedan pulled into our gravel yard.

A woman in a navy blazer got out with a leather folder and looked at Mom's cucumber rows.

"Ms. Marlin?" she said. "I'm an investigator for the state medical board."

Mom came out the screen door wiping her hands.

"You'll want sweet tea," she said. "And a chair on the porch. I'm staying for this."

"Mrs. Marlin, I'd rather speak to your daughter alone."

"I'd rather you didn't," Mom said. "I was in the room."

The investigator looked at her, and then at me, and sat down on the porch swing.

I took the rocker.

Mom stood at the railing with her arms folded.

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