Chapter 6: Patricia Fights Back
We didn't sleep.
Emma was discharged at ten-fifteen.
Ryan drove home in silence, one hand on the wheel, one hand on Emma's.
I followed in my own car, and the whole drive I kept thinking about that text message.
A legal firm.
Already moving.
Before Gerald had even made it home.
Patricia hadn't waited to see how the night unfolded.
She'd made her first call before Ryan had finished telling his father the truth.
That told me everything I needed to know about what kind of fight this was going to be.
Ryan got Emma settled on the sofa with a blanket and a glass of water, and then he stood in the middle of their living room and called Carol Simms.
She answered on the second ring.
"I'm not backing down," Carol said.
Ryan had it on speaker.
Her voice was steady.
"I've been a nurse for twenty-two years.
I know what patient privacy means.
What was done to Emma was wrong, and I'm not going to be frightened into silence by a phone call from someone I've never met."
"Carol, if your license is reviewed—"
"Then it's reviewed.
I have a clean record and I have documentation of everything I observed.
Let them look." A pause.
"Ryan, I called you because it was the right thing to do.
I'm not stopping now because someone made a threat."
Ryan looked at Emma.
Emma gave a small nod.
"Thank you," Ryan said.
"I mean that."
"Get some rest," Carol said.
"And tell Emma congratulations.
That little one has a good strong heartbeat."
She hung up.
Ryan set the phone down on the coffee table.
"She's not the only one who can make calls tonight," Emma said.
"Emma—"
"I want to talk to David Marsh myself.
Not through your father.
Directly."
Ryan sat down across from her.
"It's almost eleven."
"I know what time it is." She looked at him steadily.
"Your mother has a lawyer who was already briefed and ready to make calls within hours of the shower.
That means she planned for this.
She knew there was a chance tonight would go wrong for her, and she had a response prepared." Emma's hand moved to her stomach.
"I am not going to sit here and let her set the pace."
Ryan picked up his phone.
He found David Marsh's number and handed the phone to Emma.
She called.
Marsh answered on the fourth ring, groggy but alert.
Ryan had known him since childhood — he picked up for Ryan's family.
"David, this is Emma.
Ryan's wife." She didn't apologize for the hour.
"I need to tell you what happened today and I need to know what our options are.
All of them."
I sat in the armchair by the window and listened to my daughter lay out the facts with a precision that made my chest ache with something that was almost pride and almost grief at the same time.
She was eight months pregnant, she had spent the evening in a hospital monitoring room, and she was sitting on her sofa in the dark talking to a lawyer like she was the calmest person in the building.
She was.
She absolutely was.
Marsh listened without interrupting.
When she finished, he was quiet for a moment.
"The supplemental form Patricia filed with the clinic — do you have documentation of it?"
"We have the original request, the compiled records, and a nurse willing to make a formal statement."
"The phone call to the nurse tonight — Carol Simms — do you have any record of that?"
"Carol has the number.
She can document the call and its content."
"Good." Another pause.
"Emma, what Patricia did constitutes unauthorized access to protected health information.
That's a HIPAA violation.
It's not a gray area.
And the attempt to intimidate a potential witness — that adds a layer."
"What does that mean in practical terms?"
"It means you have grounds for a formal complaint to the Office for Civil Rights.
It means the clinic has liability exposure they will want to address.
And it means Patricia's attorney, whoever they are, has a client who has already made two significant legal errors in the span of one evening."
Emma looked at Ryan.
Ryan looked at the floor.
"What do we do first?" Emma asked.
"First, you sleep.
Second, you call me in the morning and we start the paperwork." Marsh's voice was firm.
"Patricia moved fast tonight because she was hoping to scare Carol before anything was formalized.
She didn't succeed.
That's her first mistake.
Don't let her make you rush into yours."
"Understood."
"Emma.
This is winnable.
Get some rest."
She handed the phone back to Ryan.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Ryan said, "You should have been a lawyer."
Emma almost smiled.
"I'm a third-grade teacher.
It's the same skill set."
I got up and went to the kitchen to make tea nobody asked for, because I needed something to do with my hands.
I was filling the kettle when my own phone buzzed.
A text.
Unknown number.
*Your daughter should think carefully about how far she wants to take this.
Some things are better left in the family.*
I stood at the sink and read it twice.
Then I walked back into the living room.
"Patricia just texted me," I said.
Emma and Ryan both looked up.
I held out the phone.
Ryan read it.
His face went very still.
"She texted you," he said.
Not a question.
"She texted me."
Emma reached out and took the phone from Ryan's hand.
She read it once.
She handed it back to me.
"Screenshot that," she said.
"Send it to David Marsh tonight."
I did.
May you like
And somewhere across the city, I was certain Patricia was sitting in her kitchen believing she had just sent a warning.
She had actually sent evidence.
