Chapter 7 - Michael Knew She Was Getting Worse
Monday morning Emily complained:
“Stomach still hurts.”
I said:
“Maybe you bruised it.”
She looked at me.
Then:
“Yeah.”
I had no idea how much was inside that one word.
Michael heard.
He said:
“You’re fine.”
Emily missed breakfast.
At school she texted me:
Can you pick me up?
I was teaching a fourth-grade intervention block and did not see it for thirty-five minutes.
By then the nurse had called Michael because he was listed first in the school contact system after a recent insurance change.
Michael picked her up.
This fact mattered.
He had her alone.
According to Emily, she told him in the car:
“It really hurts.”
Michael answered:
“Then stop acting like Sunday was something it wasn’t.”
She said:
“You pushed me.”
He said:
“You slipped because you were fighting me.”
Then:
“If you tell people I hit you, you’ll destroy this family.”
That sentence became the first explicit instruction:
keep quiet.
At home he gave her:
ibuprofen.
A terrible choice with a possible internal injury, though he could not have known the exact diagnosis.
Then told her to:
sleep.
He never called me.
When I got home, Emily was in bed.
Michael said:
“She came home with cramps.”
I believed:
menstrual pain.
Tuesday she vomited twice.
Michael told her:
“She gets nauseous when she works herself up.”
I asked:
“Should we call the pediatrician?”
He said:
“She’s eating chips.”
Emily had eaten:
three crackers.
By Tuesday night she developed fever.
I said:
“We’re going in tomorrow if she’s not better.”
Michael answered:
“Fine.”
Tomorrow.
Another word that became dangerous.
At 4:30 Wednesday morning, Emily woke me crying.
“I can’t do this.”
I drove her to the ER.
I did not wake:
Michael.
May you like
Part of me already knew I did not want him there.
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