He Called My Brain Injury a Hunger Strike, So I Forgot Him novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Welfare Check

Roland and Imogen bring a patrol officer to Erik's boat shop to take Leah home. She says in front of all of them that she's an adult and she's staying, and Roland answers by freezing every account she has.

I called the number from a bus bench two blocks from the house.

Erik picked up on the second ring.

"Hargrove."

"It's Leah," I said. "You helped me on the sidewalk outside the pharmacy. You left a card."

"I remember," he said. "Where are you?"

I read him the street sign, and he said, "Stay on the bench. Fifteen minutes."

He took ten.

He pulled up in a flatbed truck with a boat hull strapped to the back and got out without hurrying.

He didn't ask what had happened.

He looked at the folder in my hands, and then at the house up the hill, and he opened the passenger door.

"I've got a loft over my shop," he said. "It's a bed and a kettle. The door locks from the inside."

"Why would you do that for me?"

"Because you said you had no family," Erik said. "I've been thinking about it for a week."

The shop sat on the river, a long tin building that smelled of cedar and varnish.

The loft was up a steel staircase.

There was a narrow bed with a green wool blanket, a kettle, and one window that faced the water.

He showed me the lock, set a key on the table, and went back downstairs.

I lay down in my coat, and I slept for fourteen hours.

In the morning, he left a mug of weak tea outside the door and knocked once.

I drank half of it.

It stayed down.

That was my whole morning, and it was the best one I'd had in six months.

At noon, I heard a car in the gravel lot, and then a second one.

I went to the window.

A patrol car had pulled in behind Roland's black sedan.

Roland got out first, in his good jacket.

Imogen got out of the passenger side with her hands pressed together, looking worried.

An officer followed them, a young man with a tablet.

I went down the stairs one step at a time, holding the rail.

Erik was in the doorway of the shop with a plane in his hand and sawdust to his elbows.

"Morning," he said to the officer. "Can I help you?"

"We're doing a welfare check," the officer said. "Mr. Thackeray reports his wife has a head injury and left home confused."

"Leah," Imogen said, and her voice cracked. "Oh, thank God. We were so scared."

She reached for my hand.

I let her take it, because I didn't know yet what else to do.

"Ma'am," the officer said, "do you know your full name?"

"Leah Callison Thackeray."

"Today's date?"

I told him.

"Where are you right now?"

"In a boat shop on the river," I said. "Because I walked here, and it's mine to walk to."

Roland stepped forward.

"She has a bullet in her brain, officer. She doesn't know what she wants. She was confused last week, she didn't eat, she collapsed. She needs to be home."

"Is that true, ma'am?" the officer asked. "Do you want to go home?"

Roland's eyes were on me.

I looked at Imogen, who was still holding my hand and smiling at me with wet eyes, and I looked at the sedan, and the house I couldn't see from here.

"No," I said.

"Leah," Roland said.

"I'm thirty years old and I know my name," I said. "I'm an adult, and I'm staying here."

The officer lowered his tablet.

"Then I can't make her leave, Mr. Thackeray. If she's safe and it's her choice, that's the end of it."

"She's safe?" Roland said. "With him?"

"Sir," the officer said.

Erik hadn't moved.

He stood in the doorway with the plane in his hand and a curl of cedar on his boot.

"Door's open," he said to me. "It's open both ways."

I pulled my hand out of Imogen's.

"Thank you for coming," I told her. "Go home."

Her smile held a moment longer than it should have.

"Of course, sweetheart," she said. "We just love you."

The officer nodded to me, nodded to Erik, and walked back to his car.

Imogen followed him.

Roland stayed where he was until the patrol car had pulled out of the lot.

Then he took a step toward me and lowered his voice.

"Check your bank app," he said.

My hands were shaking, so I held the phone against my coat to type in the passcode.

The first balance was zero.

The joint account was frozen.

The credit card I'd had for six years said: declined.

I scrolled until I found the only account in my name alone.

It held thirty-one dollars.

Roland watched me read it.

"Come home when you're hungry," he said, and walked to his car.

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