Just in Case
Only thirty-six hours after Hannah gives birth to Grace, her husband locks the hospital room, grips her throat and demands signatures. He thinks her hard-of-hearing mechanic uncle is powerless, but Ray has spent a lifetime preparing for the moment his family might need proof, protection and a way out.
Fiction. Contains postpartum distress, domestic violence, strangulation, coercive control, threats involving an infant, family intimidation and legal proceedings.Chapter One: Fingerprints on the neck
I was discharged from the hospital still wearing the hospital wristband, and Derek put his hands around my neck. Our daughter was only thirty-six hours old. Her name is Grace. She lay quietly against my chest, wrapped in a small pink blanket, making a tiny sound like a bird with every breath. I remember staring at her eyelashes and thinking that nothing in the world could be more fragile.
Derek closed the ward door with his backhand.
His father, Richard Hale, stood in front of the window, with his back to the city, his hands folded on the top of his silver cane. He has the kind of wealth that makes nurses tread lightly and hospital administrators bend over backwards. Haile Health System donates millions of dollars to hospitals across Texas, including the one where I just had my baby.
Derek smiled when he saw me looking at Richard.
“Don’t be so scared, Hannah.”
That’s my name. Hannah Hale - Although I have mentally regarded it as a borrowed name that will be returned sooner or later. Derek pulled a leather folder out of his briefcase and tossed it on the dining room table of my hospital bed.
“Sign.”
I scanned the text on the document. Temporary custody order. Postpartum Care Authorization. Financial Management Authorization. Discharge consent form. My eyes move slowly line by line, because the analgesic medicine makes everything in front of me dizzy, but fear can always read the malice between the lines faster than reason.
“These documents give you power over Grace,” I whispered.
“They’re there to prevent you from making irrational decisions.”
Richard’s voice was gentle and steady.
“You just went through a difficult birth. No one expects you to take care of everything right away.”
Derek leaned over me.
“You embarrassed me this morning.”
I just asked the nurse not to let Richard into the ward without my permission. That’s all. It was just an insignificant stick to the bottom line, a mother’s small resistance after experiencing a marriage full of obedience.
Derek’s smile disappeared.
“Do you think that after giving birth to a child, you will be the queen now?”
Grace moved in my arms.
“Please don’t yell.”
“I didn’t yell.”
Indeed not. Derek rarely yelled when he was in real danger. He reached out and took Grace from my arms and carefully placed her into the cradle. Then, he turned around, grabbed my chin, and squeezed my teeth so hard that it hurt.
“Sign,” he whispered, “or I tell every doctor here that you’re insane.”
I reached out to ring the call bell beside the bed. His hand grasped my throat. Not long. But deadly enough. My lungs locked up, and my fingers clawed at his wrist desperately. Richard looked away, no shock, no fear, just boredom at the surface level of violence.
When Derek let go, I rolled over on the edge of the bed, coughing violently. The dark oppression surged crazily under the skin.
“Now,” Derek said, adjusting his cuffs, “are you ready to obey?”
the ward door was pushed open. Uncle Ray walked in, carrying a plastic drugstore bag of diapers and a stuffed rabbit in his arms. He is sixty-four years old, with broad shoulders, tattoos all over his arms, gray hair, and a slight deafness due to a past event that is rarely mentioned. To Derek, he was just my mother’s rude cousin, an Amarillo mechanic with oil under his fingernails.
Rey’s eyes fell on me. Then came the fingerprints on my neck. The bag in his hand fell to the ground. The ward was deathly silent.