“What’s happening? Is Patricia all right?”
As I sped down the highway toward a hospital I hadn’t seen in a month, I realized I had no idea what had actually been happening inside those walls. And I was about to find out alone.
My tires screeched into the hospital parking lot before I even remembered turning off the highway.
I ran through the sliding doors, past the front desk, past a janitor with his mop, my coat half off one shoulder.
A nurse stepped directly into my path before I reached the elevator. She was small, gray at the temples, and she pressed something folded into my palm.
“I’m the one who called you,” she whispered. “Read this immediately. Your husband is lying to you.”
My fingers wouldn’t cooperate at first.
The note inside read: “Go to Room 120. I’ll show you the security camera footage. Please stay calm and don’t tell anyone.”
“Read this immediately. Your husband is lying to you.”
I followed her down a side hallway. She unlocked a small office and gestured for me to sit.
A monitor flickered to life in front of me.
“I need you to understand something before I press play,” she said. “What I’m about to show you, I should have shown you weeks ago. Hospital administration finally allowed me to copy the footage after Patricia filed a complaint.”
“Just play it,” I whispered.
The footage began.
There was Michael in the rehab wing corridor, but he wasn’t walking toward Patricia’s old room. He was holding a woman’s hand. A younger woman, with a clear curve at her belly under a soft sweater.
He kissed her at the elevator like he had kissed me on our wedding day.
“I need you to understand something before I press play.”
“No,” I breathed.
The nurse clicked to a second file. A different date. The administrative office.
Michael was signing papers across a desk.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Discharge papers. He stopped paying. Once the rehab program discharged Patricia, she was transferred to the hospital’s charity ward on the fourth floor.”
I gripped the edge of the desk. “That can’t be right. I gave him money. Every week. For the bills.”
“I know,” she said gently. “I checked the billing records myself. Nothing has come into Patricia’s account in almost a month.”
My vision narrowed to a single bright point on the screen.
“Who is she?” I whispered.
“That can’t be right. I gave him money. Every week.”
“Her name is on the visitor logs. He introduced her as his fiancée. She’s twenty-three weeks pregnant. Patricia found paperwork in his bag.”
“How do you know about her?”
The nurse folded her hands. “Patricia asked me to help her. She tried to call you four times from the ward phone. He blocked the number on your line. She had me write you a letter. He intercepted the mail at your house.”
“She knew,” I said, and my voice cracked.
“She knew. She has been trying to warn you since the day he moved her. I started documenting everything two weeks ago. I didn’t know how to reach you until today.”
“She’s twenty-three weeks pregnant.”
I covered my face with my hands. I thought of every hug, every grateful kiss on my forehead, every envelope of cash I had pressed into his palm, believing it was keeping his mother alive.
“My husband used me,” I said. “He used me to pay for her.”
“Yes,” the nurse said softly.
