Chapter 2 - The Notes I Never Wrote
The emergency department smelled like disinfectant and burnt coffee.
Scott was not allowed into my room because I said no.
That sentence felt enormous.
No.
A word I had used casually thousands of times before marriage, before surgery, before I learned how exhausting it was to keep defending a boundary after somebody decided it was negotiable.
Erin stayed until the hospital nurse took over.
The surgical team checked the incision.
The wound had been irritated and partially reopened at the edge, but there was no catastrophic internal injury.
I cried with relief.
Then felt ridiculous for being relieved that my husband had only hurt me a little.
Monica Perez, the hospital social worker, sat beside the bed.
"I'm going to ask you questions. You can stop me anytime."
I nodded.
"Has your husband ever hurt you before today?"
My first answer rose automatically.
No.
Then I remembered the dressing.
The other stains.
The nights he gripped my upper arm when I tried to get out of bed without asking him.
The time he squeezed my wrist until I dropped my phone because I was "wasting energy arguing with your sister."
"Yes," I said.
The word made me shake.
Monica did not praise me for bravery.
Thank God.
She wrote.
Then Erin returned holding a blue binder.
My home-care binder.
Scott kept it on the kitchen counter.
"I need to show you something."
She opened to a page from five days earlier.
Her own note ended at 4:42 p.m.
Vitals stable.
Dressing clean.
Patient alert and oriented.
Below it, in different handwriting:
PATIENT BECAME CONFUSED AFTER NURSE DEPARTED. REFUSED DINNER. ATTEMPTED TO REMOVE DRESSING.
I stared.
"I didn't write that."
"I know," Erin said.
"Did you?"
"No."
Monica looked up.
"Who has access to this binder?"
"Scott."
There were more entries.
PATIENT IRRITABLE.
PATIENT ACCUSED CAREGIVER OF HIDING PHONE.
PATIENT FORGOT DAUGHTER'S SCHOOL SCHEDULE.
PATIENT REFUSED VISITOR.
My chest tightened.
"I didn't refuse visitors."
Erin turned another page.
"Your sister Molly called the agency twice asking whether visits were allowed."
I looked at her.
"Molly hasn't called me in three weeks."
Monica asked, "Are you sure?"
"She stopped answering."
Erin and Monica exchanged a glance.
I hated that glance.
Not because they were hiding something.
Because I suddenly understood they were seeing a pattern before I was ready to.
Monica asked whether I had my phone.
I did.
My recent call log showed almost nothing.
Scott had been managing most calls because talking tired me.
He had my passcode.
He had my patient-portal password.
He had every practical thing a spouse might reasonably have during cancer treatment.
I had called it help.
Monica said, "Would you like to call your sister from my phone?"
I nodded.
Molly answered before the second ring.
"Hello?"
I could not speak.
She heard me breathe.
"Natalie?"
I started crying.
"Why did you stop calling me?"
Silence.
Then Molly said, "I didn't."
My fingers went cold.
"Scott told me you couldn't handle calls. He said you asked me to stop showing up because I was upsetting you."
I closed my eyes.
"I never said that."
Molly made a broken sound.
"Oh my God."
Monica handed me tissues.
Molly continued.
"Nat, he sent me messages from your phone."
I stared at my own screen.
"What messages?"
"You told me I was making treatment harder. You told me to give you space."
I whispered, "That wasn't me."
Then Molly said something worse.
"He told Grace the same thing."
My daughter.
My thirteen-year-old daughter had been staying with Molly while I recovered from surgery.
I sat up too quickly.
Pain pulled across my abdomen.
"What did he tell Grace?"
Molly started crying.
"That you didn't want her seeing you sick."
I could barely hear her next words.
"She thinks you asked her not to come home."
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