Chapter 12
Two days later, June cleared all her neonatal checks with flying colors. Her lungs were clear, her latch was strong, and her weight was already stabilizing.
At ten o'clock on Thursday morning, the nurse brought her into my room in a bassinet, bundled in a warm pink fleece onesie that Holly had washed and brought from home.
"You’re free to go home, Mama," the nurse smiled, handing me the discharge papers.
Diane had pulled her car around to the hospital pickup circle, while Holly waited downstairs with the car seat properly installed in the back. As the orderly wheeled me through the sliding glass doors into the chilly November sunshine, I saw a familiar figure standing near the bus stop across the street.
Adam.
He was wearing an oversized thrift-store jacket, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. He looked hollow, gaunt, like a shadow of the man who had kissed me goodbye five days ago. When he saw the wheelchair, he took two steps into the crosswalk, but the armed hospital security guard stationed at the curb immediately stepped forward, resting a hand on his taser.
Adam stopped.
He stood in the middle of the street, looking at the tiny bundle in my arms.
I didn't yell. I didn't cry. I simply pulled the soft fleece blanket down half an inch, looked across the asphalt, and held our daughter so he could see her face.
Just for three seconds.
Then I tucked her back under the blanket, stepped out of the wheelchair, and climbed into the back seat of Diane’s car.
As Diane pulled away from the curb, I looked out the tinted window. Adam remained standing on the median strip, his head bowed, the cold autumn wind whipping his jacket around his thin frame, growing smaller and smaller until he vanished around the corner.
We arrived back at the house in Westerville twenty minutes later.
Aunt Carol had spent the last two days scrubbing every surface until it shone. The scent of bleach, lemon polish, and fresh cinnamon rolls filled the air. The crib was made with fresh flannel sheets. The changing table was stocked with diapers that my elementary school coworkers had dropped off in three massive laundry baskets on Holly’s porch.
For the first time in months, the house felt peaceful. The heavy, suffocating cloud of Adam’s anxiety and hidden deceit was gone.
I laid June down in her bassinet beside my bed, watched her chest rise and fall in steady, rhythmic breaths, and sat down at the kitchen counter with Diane.
"Eleanor Vance called while you were in triage," Diane said, opening her leather briefcase and pulling out three notarized legal documents. "Adam signed."
I blinked. "He signed the quitclaim deed?"
"He signed everything," Diane said quietly. "The quitclaim deed surrendering his entire equity interest in this house to you. The voluntary financial separation agreement acknowledging that all debt incurred through his gambling activities belongs solely to him. And a temporary restraining order agreeing to stay five hundred yards away from this property and your workplace."
I touched the crisp paper, seeing Adam’s familiar, scrawling signature at the bottom of each page beside a Franklin County notary stamp.
"How did you get him to do it?" I asked.
Diane’s eyes grew cold and hard as flint.
"I told him that if he didn't sign," Diane said softly, "I would personally drive Greg Callahan and your Uncle Robert to the county prosecutor's office and testify as a state witness to put my own son in Marysville Correctional Facility for grand theft."
I stared at my mother-in-law, a chill running down my spine. "You would have done that?"
May you like
"In a heartbeat," Diane said, reaching across the table to cover my hand with hers. "A mother's job is to teach her child to be a decent human being. When they refuse to learn, her job is to protect the innocent people they try to destroy. You and June are my family now, Natalie. Adam made his choice."
***
