Chapter 3 - I Care
David had not always been this obvious.
In the beginning, he was protective in ways that felt like love.
He drove her to appointments.
Ordered her soup when she was nauseated.
Told friends, “I just want to take care of my girls,” even before they knew the baby was a girl.
Then he started correcting her.
Don’t buy that.
Don’t tell your sister that.
Don’t wear that dress.
Don’t make me look cheap.
Don’t act like you’re the only woman who’s ever been pregnant.
By month six, he controlled the bank cards.
By month seven, he had moved her paycheck into an account he said was “better organized.”
By month eight, Nora had to ask for gas money.
And every time she asked, David sighed like she was draining him dry.
That was why the blanket mattered.
She had seen it while walking through the baby aisle.
Soft blue cotton.
Tiny clouds stitched along the edge.
Clearance sticker.
$14.
She picked it up and held it against her belly.
For one moment, she imagined bringing her daughter home wrapped in something she had chosen herself.
David saw her smiling and hated it.
“No.”
“It’s fourteen dollars.”
“We have blankets.”
“We have towels.”
“A baby doesn’t care.”
“I care.”
That was the sentence that made his face change.
I care.
David could tolerate her needing.
Needing made her dependent.
He could tolerate her apologizing.
Apologizing made him powerful.
What he could not tolerate was her wanting something small and harmless that did not pass through him first.
So he followed her to checkout.
Snatched the blanket.
Shoved her into the counter.
And now, under fluorescent lights, with shoppers watching and his phone glowing, the secret account had found its way into the room.
The ambulance arrived before police did.
Wyatt kept David restrained until store security took over.
Nora was placed carefully on a stretcher, one hand still holding the edge of the blue blanket because the cashier had picked it up and tucked it beside her.
David shouted as paramedics rolled Nora toward the doors.
“She’s my wife. I’m going with her.”
Nora turned her head.
Her voice came out weak, but clear.
“No.”
The paramedic looked at her.
“You do not want him in the ambulance?”
“No.”
David’s face darkened.
Wyatt stepped between him and the stretcher.
“You heard her.”
David laughed.
“You think this is over because you played hero in a grocery store?”
May you like
Wyatt looked at the security camera.
“No,” he said. “I think it started because you forgot stores record everything.”
