Next Time Away novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Three Marshmallows

Tove feeds Elsie cocoa and hears about the garden her mother says Tove is going to, then hands her back and shuts the door; at the clinic her blood pressure is high and she learns Dagny signed on as her caregiver and has been asking whether the hospital can hold her after delivery.

I did not ask Elsie anything yet.

I took her coat, sat her at my grandmother's kitchen table, and put the kettle on.

Her fingers were red, and her nose was running.

"Two marshmallows or three?" I asked.

"Three," she said. "Mommy says two."

"Tonight it's three."

She smiled at that, with the gap in her teeth showing.

I put the mug in front of her, and she held it with both hands.

I sat down across from her, slowly, because the baby had decided to kick my ribs.

"Elsie," I said. "Where did your mommy say I'm going to rest?"

"A place with a garden," she said. "It's pretty. You get your own bed, and you don't have to cook."

"Did she say who goes with me?"

"Nobody. They bring you back when you're better." She licked a marshmallow off her thumb. "Then Uncle Soren and Mommy and me live here with the baby."

"Is that what you want?"

Elsie thought about it very seriously.

"I liked the room with the snowflake," she said. "Uncle Soren said I could have it."

I put my hand flat on the table.

"Your sign is very pretty," I told her.

"He made it. He said it was a secret." She looked up, stricken. "Was I not supposed to say?"

"You can always say anything to me," I said.

I found my grandmother's gray wool hat in the hall closet and pulled it down over her ears.

Then I carried her to the door myself, because her boots were still on the porch.

Dagny stood on the welcome mat with her arms wrapped around herself.

Soren stood a step below her with his phone lit up in his hand.

I handed Elsie over and watched Dagny press her face into the child's hair.

"Thank you, honey," Dagny whispered. "You're so good to her."

"Where is the garden, Dagny?" I said.

Her head came up.

"What garden?"

"The one I'm going to for a rest."

Dagny looked at Soren.

Soren looked at his phone.

"She's six," Dagny said gently. "She has a big imagination. You've had a terrible day, Tove, and you haven't been yourself since you got pregnant."

"I've been myself every day," I said. "I'm looking at the person who isn't."

"Tove." Soren put the phone away. "Mom thinks you should talk to someone. That's all this is. Dagny's just trying to help."

"She's helped. She hung up her own stocking in my house."

"It was a picture."

"Your emergency was a picture."

He opened his mouth, and I closed the door.

I locked the new bolt and leaned my forehead against the wood.

I did not sleep.

At eight the clinic called to say they wanted my blood pressure checked that morning because of the low fluid.

I drove myself, slowly, with both hands on the wheel.

The cuff squeezed my arm and then let go.

"One forty-eight over ninety-six," the nurse said.

The doctor came in with my chart and sat on the rolling stool.

"That's too high for you," she said. "You're on bed rest as of now. No stairs unless you have to, no driving, no stress."

"No stress," I said, and almost laughed.

"Is there someone at home to help?"

"I'm working on it."

She wrote something down and told me to sit in the waiting room while they printed my orders.

The waiting room had eight chairs and a fish tank, and I took the one by the pamphlets about breastfeeding.

I was still holding my coat when the receptionist leaned out of her window.

"Mrs. Ellingson? I'm sorry. I need you to sign the update on your caregiver form."

"What caregiver form?"

She turned her screen toward me.

The page was one I recognized.

At my thirtieth week, Dagny had come with me and held my purse while I was weighed.

She had handed me a single page and a pen and said, "It's for the parking validation. Sign here, honey."

I had signed it without reading, because it was Dagny.

I read it now.

Authorized caregiver: Dagny Ellingson. May receive results, schedule appointments and speak with providers on the patient's behalf.

My signature sat at the bottom, loose and trusting.

"Cross it out," I said. "Cross out her name and put in that I revoke everything. I'll sign it right now."

The receptionist's eyes moved to the hall, to a nurse who had stopped to listen.

"I can do that," she said quietly. "She's already used it, you know."

"Used it how?"

The nurse came over and lowered her voice.

"She called twice yesterday afternoon," she said. "She asked if your chart mentioned anxiety."

I stared at her.

"And she asked what it takes for a hospital to keep a patient for evaluation after she delivers," the nurse said. "She wanted to know whether the family could sign for it."

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