Chapter 2

Luke pulled the monitor out of my apron pocket with a jerk that scraped the canvas across my knuckles. I let him. If I fought, he’d look down. If I went limp, he might think he’d already won.

“It’s a baby monitor,” I said. My voice came out thin and stunned, which wasn’t hard. “For the baby. I was testing it.”

“Testing it in the sugarhouse?”

“The Wi-Fi.”

He turned the camera over in his hand. The red light still blinked. He didn’t know how to turn it off. He didn’t know about the card. He shoved it into his jacket pocket, where it kept recording the fold of fabric, the hiss of the evaporator, and every word that came next.

Maribel stepped inside. She set the blue pill bottle on the office desk and knelt in front of me, her latex gloves snapping at the wrist. She tilted my chin with two fingers. Her touch was brisk, competent, and utterly without warmth.

“Pupils equal,” she murmured. “No bleeding. You’re fine.”

“She fell,” Luke said.

“I saw,” Maribel said. She didn’t look at him. “Help me get her inside.”

They walked me across the icy dooryard with my boots sliding under me. The freezing rain had thickened, ticking against the metal roofs like tiny nails. In the kitchen, the woodstove threw orange light on the walls. Walter was awake in his room, calling my name in his slow, Parkinson’s voice. I tried to go to him, but Maribel steered me to the couch.

“Sit,” she said. “You’ll upset him.”

Luke paced behind her. His jacket pocket sagged with the monitor. I kept my eyes half closed and my breathing shallow, the way I’d learned to do when I needed them to stop watching.

“The clerk said she can call in a welfare check tonight,” Maribel said. “She knows the judge. But we need the story straight.”

“She stumbled,” Luke said.

“She stumbled,” Maribel repeated. “She’s been confused. Forgetful. Leaving the stove on. Talking about poison in her vitamins.”

My stomach turned. I hadn’t left the stove on. I hadn’t accused anyone of poison. Not out loud.

“The blue ones,” Luke said. “She won’t remember the welfare check.”

“Lower your voice,” Maribel snapped.

“She’s out of it.”

“She’s right there.”

I let my head loll against the cushion and made a small, soft sound. Inside, I was counting. The monitor was in his pocket. The card was in the monitor. If he didn’t turn it off, it was still hearing them.

“Where’s her bag?” Luke said.

“Upstairs.”

He took the stairs two at a time. I heard drawers opening, the zipper of my overnight bag, the clatter of my hairbrush hitting the floor. Maribel went to the kitchen to call the clerk again. I opened my eyes.

The monitor lay on the end table beside Luke’s jacket. He must have dropped it when he went upstairs. The red light was still pulsing.

I stood up slowly. The ache in my belly had settled into a low, warning throb. I crossed the kitchen floor without breathing and picked up the monitor. It was warm from his pocket. I slid it under my apron, against my ribs, and sat back down just as Luke’s boots hit the stairs.

He came down holding my phone.

“Looking for this?” he said.

“I don’t need it.”

“You don’t need anything,” he said. “Not anymore.”

Maribel came back from the kitchen with the cordless phone pressed to her ear. “Yes, I’m her mother-in-law. I’m a nurse. I’m concerned she may harm herself or the baby.”

The words went through me like ice water.

Luke dropped my phone into his pocket and looked at me on the couch. I kept my hand flat over my apron, over the monitor, over the small red light that was still recording.

“You look pale,” Maribel said to me, covering the phone. “Maybe you should take your vitamins.”

I nodded. I didn’t trust my voice.