Chapter 8: What Sandra Did
The baby came at 6:14 in the evening.
Five pounds, nine ounces.
A girl.
She arrived fast at the end, the way premature babies sometimes do, as if they've made their decision and see no reason to delay.
She cried immediately, which Paula said was a very good sign, and they placed her on my chest and she was so small and so warm and so completely certain of her own existence that everything else — the voice memo, the lawyer's letter, Sandra, Deanna, all of it — went somewhere far away for a few minutes.
Just a few minutes.
But I needed them.
Jess was crying.
She was trying not to show it and failing completely.
They took the baby for initial checks.
I lay back.
The room was quieter now, the particular quiet that comes after something enormous.
"I need to deal with the rest of it," I said.
"Not tonight," Jess said.
"Yes, tonight.
Before anything gets signed.
Before Chris comes back in here with that letter." I looked at her.
"I need to know who that woman was."
Jess had already been thinking about it.
I could tell by the way she reached into her bag and pulled out her phone without hesitation.
"I called the hospital's main line while I was in the waiting room during the delivery," she said.
"I asked to speak to the charge nurse for this ward.
I told her a woman in scrubs had entered a patient's room without being logged and I wanted to know how that was possible."
"What did she say?"
"She said she'd look into it.
But then I described the woman — dark hair, mid-thirties, small silver stud earrings — and the charge nurse went very quiet." Jess set her phone on the bed between us.
"She said she recognized the description.
She said a woman matching that description had been seen in the staff corridor twice this afternoon.
She had a visitor badge, not a staff badge.
Someone had issued her a visitor pass that gave her access to the maternity ward corridor."
"Who issued it?"
"That's what they're trying to find out.
But the charge nurse said visitor passes for restricted wards have to be authorized by someone with administrative clearance." Jess paused.
"She also said they pulled the corridor camera footage.
The woman in scrubs was on it.
They could see her going into your room."
I let that settle.
"Sandra," I said.
"Almost certainly.
She knew which ward you were on because Chris told her.
She still has contacts here from her years in administration.
She got someone to issue a visitor pass, gave the woman a set of scrubs, and sent her in to deliver the phone to your MIL before any staff could intervene." Jess's voice was flat and precise.
"It was coordinated, Mara.
It wasn't just Chris panicking in a car.
Someone planned this."
The door opened and Chris came in.
He'd been crying, I could see that — his eyes were red and he was holding himself very carefully, the way people do when they're trying not to fall apart in front of others.
"She's beautiful," he said.
His voice broke on the word.
"They let me see her through the window.
She's so—" He stopped.
Pressed his hand over his mouth for a moment.
"I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry."
"Sit down," I said.
He sat.
"I need you to listen to me," I said.
"Not as your wife right now.
Just as the person in this bed.
Can you do that?"
He nodded.
"Your aunt Sandra sent a woman into my delivery room.
Not a nurse.
Someone she dressed up and walked in through a side corridor using a visitor pass she arranged through an old contact.
That woman bypassed the nursing log and came within arm's reach of me and my monitors." I watched his face.
"The hospital has her on camera.
They are looking into who authorized the pass."
Chris went very still.
"That is not a panicked husband making a bad call," I said.
"That is someone else's plan that you handed the keys to.
And I need to know right now — did you know?
Any part of it?"
"No." The word came out immediately, raw.
"I swear to you, Mara.
I told Sandra what was happening and she said she'd help and I — I didn't ask.
I should have asked.
I should have asked what she was going to do and I didn't and I am—" He stopped.
"I don't have a word for what I am right now."
"Accountable," Jess said quietly.
"The word is accountable."
Chris looked at her.
He didn't argue.
"There's a letter in your car," I said.
"I'll shred it."
"I need to see it first."
He reached into his jacket pocket.
He'd already brought it in.
He set it on the bed — a single folded page, a law firm's letterhead at the top — and didn't look at it again.
I didn't open it yet.
I just put my hand on it.
"We have a daughter," I said.
"She is five pounds and nine ounces and she is in a warming bassinet down the hall.
And before I decide anything about us, I need to decide about her." I looked at him.
"Her name is going on that birth certificate tonight.
My name.
Her name.
And you are going to stand next to me when I sign it."
Chris nodded.
His jaw was tight.
May you like
His eyes were wet.
"And then," I said, "we are going to talk about Sandra."
