Chapter 6

At 7:40, Luke came back inside with ice melting in his hair. He went straight to the stove and stood over it, warming his hands. I was at the table with Maribel and Rhonda, pretending to drink tea. My stomach was in knots. I kept my eyes on the kitchen floor, on the radiator, on the lid I could just see in the shadow.

“Generator’s holding,” Luke said. “But the roads are bad. Nobody’s coming up that hill.”

“The trooper will come,” Maribel said. “They have to.”

“For a welfare check,” he said. “Not for a rescue.”

He turned and looked at me. His eyes were flat. “Where’s the monitor?”

“I told you,” I said. “You took it.”

“I took it and put it in my pocket. Then it was on the end table. Then it was gone.”

“I don’t have it.”

He walked over to me and grabbed my apron. He pulled it up, shook it. Nothing fell out. He patted my pockets. He ran his hands down my legs. I sat still and let him. The only thing in my pocket was the tissue with the two blue capsules, and he didn’t find them because I’d moved them into my bra.

“You’re lying,” he said.

“Luke,” Maribel said. “Sit down.”

“She’s hiding something.”

“She’s pregnant and confused. Sit down.”

He didn’t sit. He went into the bathroom and searched it. I heard him open the hamper, throw towels on the floor. He found the monitor behind the toilet tank. He came out holding it.

“This was in the bathroom,” he said.

Maribel’s eyes narrowed. “What were you doing with it?”

“I was listening to the baby,” I said. “I wanted to hear the baby.”

Luke turned it over. The red light was off. He pressed buttons. Nothing happened. The card was gone, and without it, the monitor was just plastic and glass.

“It’s broken,” he said.

“It’s not broken. It needs a card.”

He looked at me. “What card?”

“The memory card. For the baby monitor.”

He didn’t know. He’d had it in his pocket for an hour and never once looked at the slot. He didn’t know what he’d been carrying.

“Where is it?” he said.

“I don’t know. It must have fallen out.”

He threw the monitor against the wall. It cracked and fell to the floor. Then he stomped on it. Once. Twice. The plastic shattered. The little screen went dark.

I didn’t move. I didn’t flinch. Inside, I was counting. The card was under the radiator lid. The lid was still under the radiator. He hadn’t seen it.

“There,” he said. “Now it’s gone.”

Maribel stood up. “Enough. The clerk is calling back at eight. We need her calm.”

Luke kicked the broken pieces under the table. I watched them scatter. The red light was gone. The monitor was gone. But the card was still there.

At 8:15, Maribel went to Walter’s room to check his oxygen. Rhonda went outside to call her agency on the porch. Luke went to the barn to check the generator again. I was alone in the kitchen.

I knelt by the radiator and pulled out the lid. The duct tape was still stuck to the underside. I peeled it back and took out the card. It was cold and small and perfect.

I didn’t put it back in the monitor. The monitor was dead. I went into Walter’s room. He was awake, watching the door. I lifted his emergency pendant from the blanket. The battery compartment was a small silver disk on the back. I unscrewed it with my thumbnail and slid the card inside, on top of the battery. It fit. Barely.

“Walter,” I whispered. “If you need help, press this button. It calls the state police.”

He looked at me. His hand closed around the pendant.

“Blue pills,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I’ll press it.”

I kissed his forehead. Then I went back to the kitchen and sat down just as Maribel returned with the commitment folder.

“The clerk called,” she said. “The trooper is on his way.”