“It says I authorized all eleven.”
“You did.”
“Say that again,” I said.
“You signed them, Anna.”
“You were exhausted. You don’t remember. I’m only trying to put this paperwork behind us before the baby comes.”
“I don’t sign things in hallways.”
For a second his smile held.
Then it slid.
“You’re almost done being pregnant,” he said, quietly this time, with his mouth close to my ear.
“Stop being dramatic, and sign.”
He closed his hand around my wrist.
It wasn’t gentle.
His fingers dug into the soft inside of my arm, right above my wristband, and he pulled the pen toward the signature line.
“Nick, let go.”
“Sign it.”
“You’re hurting me.”
Tara took a step forward.
“Anna,” she said.
“Please. Just sign.”
It was the line she’d been given.
“Do you know what this watch has paid for?” he hissed.
“This roof. Every dinner you’ve eaten. Do you think a nurse’s paycheck covers a house like ours?”
“It’s my money,” he said.
“It’s my family’s money. Tara needs it more than you do.”
The waiting nook had gone silent.
A mother holding a newborn pulled the baby tighter against her chest.
The grandfather with the balloons had lowered them to the floor.
Priya had stood up.
Leon pushed off the wall.
Greg Dolan stared at his own shoes.
Nick lowered his voice again, so only I could hear, and I will remember the next words for the rest of my life.
“Sign it,” he said, “or I walk out that door right now, and you can have your baby alone.”
I held his stare.
Behind me, the monitor beeped on.
Nora was listening to all of it.
“Alone,” I repeated.
I let the pen rest in my fingers.
And I waited, because I could hear the elevator doors opening at the end of the hall.
Three sets of footsteps came down the hall, the soft thump of Elaine’s old walking shoes among them.
They stopped ten feet from the clipboard.
“Nicholas,” Elaine said.
Her voice carried to every corner of that hallway.
Nick let go of my wrist as though my skin had burned him.
The silence that followed was so complete that I could hear the heart monitor through the open door.
One hundred forty-three.
One hundred forty-four.
