Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN IN RED
The nurse stayed until Paige released my wrist. She checked the tape on my IV and asked, "Do you want this visitor to leave?"
"Yes," I said.
Paige took one step toward the door. Then she turned back. "I didn't mean for you to get hurt."
"You stood there and watched."
"I was in the hall. I heard the noise. By the time I saw you, Alex was already down the stairs."
"And neither of you called."
The nurse put herself between us without making a show of it. She was a small woman, with tired eyes and a badge that said KIM. I remember that badge because I couldn't look at Paige anymore.
"You're done here," Kim told her.
Paige looked at the ultrasound she was still holding. "We're having a girl," she said, as though a baby made every decision she'd made before it disappear. "Whatever you think of me, I haven't made that up."
"I didn't ask."
"You think Alex owes you his whole life."
I stared at the IV tape on my arm. "I think he owed me a phone call when I was bleeding on our floor."
Paige's face changed. All the shine went out of it. "He was scared. He kept saying, 'If she's pregnant, she'll hate me forever.'"
My whole body went cold.
"What did you say?"
"He said it three times."
Alex hadn't known for certain. But he'd seen the edge of the pregnancy test when I pulled the white box away from him. He'd guessed, and he'd still left.
"Did you know I might be pregnant?" I asked.
Paige looked at Kim, then at the door. "I knew he was worried."
"Worried enough to run."
"I told him to call somebody," she said. "You can hate me all you want, but I did tell him."
I believed that she had said the words. I also remembered her watching while he put his phone away. Both things could be true, and neither one helped me.
Kim escorted Paige into the corridor. I heard the quiet murmur of their voices and the squeak of shoes on the floor. Then the room settled back into its hospital sounds: a cart rolling past, a cough, someone laughing too loudly at the nurses' station.
I hadn't realized I was shaking until I tried to pick up the invitation.
Its paper was the same cream color as my own wedding invitations. Paige had left it under my hand like a bill she expected me to pay.
I opened it. Under the printed card was a folded slip of paper, written in a cramped, familiar hand:
It's probably time she knows what Alex paid for.
There was no signature. Just nine words and a little blot of black ink where the writer's hand had rested.
I asked Kim to note that Paige had visited and that I wanted no more unapproved visitors. Then I called Laura.
"She was there that night," I said. "She watched him leave."
"Tell me everything, slowly."
I held up the note, though Laura couldn't see it over the phone.
May you like
"There's something else," I said. "Somebody wanted me to find out where our money went."
