Chapter 2 - No One Gets to Speak for Her
By the time the ambulance arrived, Victor had moved into the foyer and was telling Wren to delete the video. She pretended not to hear him. Cal stayed on the porch with Nora, one knee wet from the spreading fluid, repeating what the dispatcher said without trying to make the pain sound smaller.
“Another contraction?”
“Yes.” Nora gripped his forearm. “Please don't let him take my bag.”
“I won't.” Cal raised his voice just enough to reach the doorway. “Hospital bag stays with Nora.”
Victor emerged carrying it by its two handles. “I was bringing it to her.”
“Set it down beside the paramedics,” Cal said.
“I am her father.”
“You can tell them that. She'll tell them what she wants.”
A paramedic named Dana crouched so Nora didn't have to look up at everyone standing above her. Dana asked about the fluid, bleeding, contractions, movement, and the fall. She asked Nora who had pulled her by the hair. Nora pointed at Victor. Dana noted what she was told and explained that they would take her to the hospital for immediate assessment. Cal gave the responders room to work.
“Can my brother-in-law ride with me?” Nora asked.
Dana confirmed the arrangements. Victor attempted to climb in behind them. Nora shook her head.
“Not him.”
The doors shut before Victor could answer. Through the rear window Nora saw Wren holding up her phone again, this time apparently arguing with her husband. A small part of Nora wanted to scream at them. A larger part wanted to hear the baby's heartbeat.
At Mercy General, a maternity team assessed Nora and monitored the baby. The clinician explained that her waters appeared to have broken early and they would discuss treatment and delivery according to her and the baby's condition. Nora answered questions about her health while a nurse cleaned the grit from her palm. Cal waited outside when asked, then returned with the hospital bag and her consent.
“She's moving,” Nora said after a monitor picked up the baby's heartbeat. The relief hit her so suddenly she started crying. “She keeps moving.”
Cal sat without touching her. “Aaron would've been talking to that monitor like it was a baseball game.”
“He would've asked whether there was a replay.”
Cal laughed, then covered his face with a hand. The two of them had managed the funeral together without either one breaking in front of the other. Now there was no funeral director, no casserole parade, no paperwork to hide behind.
Nora wiped her eyes. “He died wearing that watch, Cal.”
“I know. He wore it into every fire station. I gave it to him when he finished training.”
“Police said it wasn't recovered.”
“I heard them say it.”
Wren had worn it openly. Not hidden in a drawer or locked in a safe. On her wrist, underneath a sleeve, while she filmed Nora on the ground. Nora could not decide which detail made her angrier.
The nurse returned with a consent form and asked whether Nora wanted anyone notified of her admission. Her phone began ringing on the bedside table. Victor. The nurse waited.
“Not my father,” Nora said. “And not Wren. Only Cal. If my labor changes, please ask me before sharing anything.”
The nurse confirmed the preference. Cal made a note in his own phone so no one could mistake a family relationship for permission.
A police officer came to take a preliminary account once Nora agreed she was ready to speak. She described the forced attempt to obtain her signature, Victor grabbing her hair, and the fall onto the steps. Cal described seeing Victor pull her and the single blow after Victor swung at him. Nora asked about the watch. The officer said its provenance could be relevant to the existing collision investigation, but neither possession nor suspicion alone proved what had happened. He gave her a case number and asked her to preserve messages and any original recording.
“Wren has the entire thing,” Nora said.
“Do you know where she sent it?”
“She was performing for someone. She called it documentation.”
Cal remembered the little red light on her screen. “She might have been live.”
Nora's stomach tightened. Another contraction this time, stronger. The officer stepped back and the nurse took over.
At eight that evening Nora was in active labor. A nurse stayed beside her as she breathed through a contraction. Cal stood by the window holding the little yellow sock that had been on the porch; Dana had retrieved it and placed it in the hospital bag. He turned it over in his hands.
“Your mother knitted those?” he asked.
“No. Aaron tried. He gave up after the first one came out shaped like a mitten. I fixed it.”
“Sounds like him.”
“He wanted to name her Elsie. After the woman who taught him to read.”
“I remember Miss Elsie. Meanest librarian in Ohio.”
“She was kind to him.”
“She could be both.”
Close to midnight, Nora delivered a small, furious baby girl. The neonatal team assessed her carefully because she had arrived early. She needed additional monitoring and help staying warm but was breathing on her own. Nora was exhausted and sore, and there were hours of observation ahead. Nobody promised an effortless recovery. The doctor showed her daughter to her, then helped arrange for Nora to hold her when it was appropriate.
“Elsie,” Nora whispered. “Your daddy was right about one thing. You're loud.”
Cal turned toward the window before she could see his face.
Just after midnight his phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number. A short video showed Victor on the porch, his hand tangled in Nora's hair. It stopped before Cal arrived. Underneath was a caption: GRIEVING DAUGHTER HAS VIOLENT EPISODE DURING FAMILY INTERVENTION.
The message contained a link to Wren's public account. It had been viewed thousands of times.
Cal looked at Nora sleeping with one hand curled toward the empty place beside her. He would not wake her for this. But he sent the link and his account of what had happened to the officer, saved the page without editing it, and called the hospital's security desk to report the situation.
Then a second message came from the same number.
May you like
I HAVE THE PART SHE CUT OUT. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I WAS AT THE CRASH, COME ALONE.
It was signed WREN.
