In The Storm, My Husband Locked Me Out And Chose Her novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: A Paper Trail

Lorna and Leander post statements calling her unwell; her blood pressure is high, the doctor starts a careful chart, and two officers arrive for a welfare check Leander's mother requested.

By nine o'clock the power was back, and Maeve had read me Lorna's statement out loud twice.

"Gwendolyn is overwhelmed right now," Maeve read, from her laptop on the kitchen table. "Pregnancy is hard, and hormones are real. We love her and we are giving her space."

"We," I said.

"We're giving you space. Under his roof, in his marriage, with his mother on the phone."

"Read the other one."

Maeve scrolled.

The Prescott Foundation had put out a second statement under Leander's name.

"Leander is deeply worried for his wife's mental state," Maeve read. "He asks the public to respect the family's privacy at this difficult time."

She shut the laptop.

"That's a paper trail," she said. "That's a man building a file."

My stomach turned over, and not because of the baby.

"He wants people to think I'm unwell."

"He wants a judge to think it."

"Then I should say something."

"Not on an empty stomach and four hours of sleep," Maeve said, and put a plate of eggs in front of me. "Eat. Then we have your thirty-two-week appointment, and I'm driving."

"People will see me."

"Good. Let them see a woman who is hungry and rude about it."

I laughed, and then I had to put my fork down because my hand was shaking.

The clip was everywhere by then.

A comment under the stranger's post said: Imagine locking a pregnant woman out in a storm.

Another said: Ma'am, run.

I had read them all in the dark at two a.m. with the baby kicking, and I had not cried once.

At the hospital, the nurse who took my blood pressure was quiet for a second too long.

"One forty-eight over ninety-six," she said. "Has it been that high before?"

"Never," I said. "It's usually one-ten."

"Has anything happened this week?"

I looked at Maeve, who was leaning in the doorway with her arms crossed.

"My husband locked me out of his car in a hurricane," I said.

"It was a nor'easter," Maeve said.

"It was a hurricane for me."

The nurse's face did something kind and horrified.

"I'll get the doctor."

The doctor came in with my chart, a tall woman with reading glasses pushed up in her hair.

She listened to the baby's heartbeat for a long time, and I watched Maeve's shoulders ease when it came through fast and strong.

"She's perfect," the doctor said. "Her heart rate is perfect. You are the problem."

"Me?"

"Your pressure is climbing, and at thirty-two weeks that matters. I want you off your feet for two weeks. No work, no stairs, no stress."

"No stress," I said.

"I know."

"My husband's mother has already called me about taking my baby."

The doctor took off her glasses.

"Then I'll write all of it in your chart," she said. "Every visit, every number, who came with you, and who did not. If anyone tries to say you are not fit, this chart says otherwise."

She wrote for a long time.

When we left, a woman in the waiting room caught my eye.

She was older, with a cane across her knees.

"You're that girl from the video," she said.

I stopped walking.

I waited for the pity, or the lecture, or the camera.

"My husband did something like it to me in 1989," she said. "I wish I had walked off in the rain too. Good for you, dear."

I could not answer.

I touched her hand and went out into the parking lot with my eyes burning.

"See?" Maeve said, unlocking the car. "Not everyone is on his side."

The ride back to Rockport took forty minutes.

I watched the gray road and let myself think it through.

I could not go back, and I had no money and no job I could safely work.

I had an older sister, a doctor's chart and a stranger's video with three million views.

It was not much, and it was mine.

We turned onto the harbor road.

A police cruiser was parked in front of Maeve's house, with its lights off.

Two officers stood on the porch beside the stacked firewood, and one of them was holding a folder.

Orin was already across the road, leaning on his truck with his arms crossed.

Maeve parked and killed the engine.

"Ladies," the older officer said, as we came up the steps. "Which one of you is Gwendolyn Brannigan?"

"I am," I said.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry to do this. We've received a request for a welfare check on you."

"From who?"

He looked down at the folder.

"A Mrs. Eleanor Prescott," he said. "She says you may be a danger to yourself and the baby."

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