Chapter 16: The Fourth Floor

Cadence lay behind a curtain on the fourth floor of Miami Valley Hospital with a monitor clipped to her finger.

The doctor, a short woman with reading glasses on her head, told us the baby had a heartbeat.

"It's stress," she said. "Cramping and spotting, and her blood pressure is too high for a girl her age."

"Bed rest, and no one who makes her cry."

Cadence was gripping my hand so hard that my ring cut into my finger.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. I didn't want to be trouble."

"You aren't trouble," I said. "You're the only person in this whole mess who told the truth in public."

She started to cry, and I held her until the nurse made me let go.

I stepped out into the hall.

The fourth-floor waiting area had a vending machine, a fish tank, and a dozen people waiting on other people.

A grandmother held a toddler.

A man in a work jacket kept turning his hat over.

Two sisters shared a bag of pretzels.

The elevator opened, and Grady walked out of it with flowers.

He had a photographer one step behind him, and he wore his navy suit and his worried husband face.

"Cor," he said, and came toward me with his arms open. "There you are. I heard from a staffer that Cadence was brought in, and I rushed over."

"The staffer in the tan sedan," I said.

"Cora. You're tired."

The photographer lifted his camera.

I stepped between Grady and the curtain.

"Take one picture," I said to the photographer, "and I'll have your card in a court filing by lunch."

He lowered it a few inches.

"Say it here," I said to Grady. "Say what you told her. That you were divorced, and I couldn't have children."

He kept the smile.

"This is a private family matter. Cadence is a young woman I mentored through the campaign."

"My wife has been under a great deal of strain."