They did not write that I had spent fifteen years mistaking survival for marriage.
A doctor came in a few minutes later.
He was calm in the way emergency room doctors are calm because panic wastes time.
He asked Emily where it hurt.
She pointed without lifting her head.
He pressed lightly on her abdomen.
Emily screamed.
The sound tore through the ER.
The woman with the paper cup froze with it halfway to her mouth.
The orderly stopped with one hand on a metal bed rail.
The receptionist’s fingers hovered above her keyboard.
The man near the vending machine looked down at the candy rows as if pretending not to hear might make the room safer.
Only the monitor kept beeping.
Nobody moved.
“I need an ultrasound and blood work now,” the doctor said.
Then he looked at me.
“Did she take anything? Medication? Anything else?”
“No,” I said. “Tea. Acetaminophen. Nothing else.”
