Chapter 3 - The Statement
Margaret exploded before the officer finished introducing himself.
“This is a family matter.”
Officer Ramirez looked at her over a small notebook. “Assault is not a family matter.”
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face. “Can everyone calm down?”
Emily lay behind the partially closed hospital door and listened.
Calm down.
Another Daniel phrase.
Usually spoken when somebody else was hurting her.
Never when his mother was angry.
Ramirez asked to speak to Emily alone. This time, she did not lie.
She told him about the slap that morning.
Then the one months earlier.
Then the shove into the refrigerator.
Then the time Margaret grabbed her hair in front of two dinner guests and Daniel told everyone they had been “joking around.”
Each memory sounded worse spoken aloud.
Ramirez asked, “Do you have photographs?”
Emily hesitated.
“Yes.”
Daniel had never known.
For almost a year, Emily had taken pictures whenever Margaret left bruises. She had hidden them in an email account under a fake name because some part of her had understood that one day she might need proof.
When Daniel learned this, he looked betrayed.
“You were documenting my mother?”
Emily stared at him. “I was documenting what she did to me.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No. That’s the problem.”
Margaret was escorted from the maternity floor after she refused to stop shouting.
Daniel stayed.
“You’re really doing this?” he asked.
Emily touched the fetal monitor strapped around her belly. “I’m keeping our son safe.”
“From my mother?”
“From a house where hitting me became normal.”
His eyes hardened. “You’re going to destroy this family.”
Emily almost answered.
Then the obstetrician walked in with a chart.
“Mrs. Carter, the contractions are slowing, which is good. But I need to ask you about a medication listed in your file.”
Emily frowned. “What medication?”
The doctor turned the screen toward her.
“A prescription for clonazepam.”
Daniel blinked. “She doesn’t take that.”
“I know,” Emily said.
The doctor looked between them. “According to this, it was prescribed three months ago by Dr. Stephen Cole.”
Emily’s stomach went cold.
She knew that name.
May you like
Dr. Cole was Margaret’s doctor.
And Emily had never met him in her life.
