The Crash

Chapter 51

51

POLLY

Hank returned to work soon after showering, but not before he caught me covered in the drink Tegan threw at me. Thankfully, he didn’t make too much of a fuss over it and let me change my clothes in peace. Then he left again without another word.

Now it’s nearly seven, and he’s back home for dinner. He looks exhausted. Even though that beard conceals much of his face, I can see it in his bloodshot eyes. He looks ten years older than he did a few days ago. And as he pulls off his black beanie, he doesn’t say “Hello, Polly” or “How was your day?” The first thing he blurts out is “She still here?”

“Hello to you too,” I retort, wiping my hands—still damp from washing them in the kitchen sink—on my jeans. “Did you have a good day at work?”

Hank stares at me.

“Tegan is fine,” I tell him. “She’s sleeping, so don’t bother her.”

That’s not true. She’s still in that wheelchair I gave her, because I was afraid to get close enough to help her back into bed. It makes me uneasy to know she can move around the basement, but it wasn’t worth the risk of getting within biting or scratching distance of that girl.

“Did you call 911 to get her?” he asks me.

“Why should I? Like I said, she’s doing fine.”

“She’s not fine,” Hank says stubbornly. “I saw the way her leg was swollen last night. It’s not just a sprain, is it?”

“It’s possible she has a small hairline fracture.”

His jaw tightens. “She needs to go to the hospital, Polly.”

“Nonsense.”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I’m calling 911. Now.”

“Why are you doing this?” My chest fills with panic. “Hank, you promised me you’d give me three days.”

“That was before she stabbed you with a fork and threw her drink at you. She clearly wants to leave. This isn’t right. I’m calling 911.”

Our reception isn’t the greatest out here, but it’s good enough to place a call to 911. I watch in horror as he punches the first number into the screen, and before he can type in all three, I snatch the phone out of his hand and hurl it to the floor with all my might.

The screen shatters and goes dark. Hank’s mouth drops open as he stares at the remains of his phone. And he can’t call on our landline since I smashed that phone the other day.

“Fine,” he says tightly. “I’ll take her to the hospital myself.”

He marches purposefully in the direction of the basement door. I race after him, stumbling over the living room rug. He wraps his fingers around the basement door and yanks it open, and I get there just in time to jump in front of him and shove it closed again.

“Polly.” He glares at me now. “Get out of my way.”

I block the basement door with my body so that he can’t get past me. He eyes me, calculating whether he can move me out of the way. Hank would never hurt me—he’d toss Mitch Hambly across the room, but there’s nothing I could do or say that would cause him to lay a finger on me. He’s not that sort of man.

“You need to move,” he says. “This is happening whether you like it or not.”

I fold my arms across my chest. “I’m not moving.”

“I’m taking her to the hospital,” he says through his teeth. “Don’t make this difficult, Polly.”

“You’re not taking her anywhere. She’s on the mend.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“We’ll go to jail, you know,” I point out. “That’s a guarantee. Is that what you want?”

“I want that girl to get the medical care she needs.”

We both stand there for a moment, our eyes locked together. Hank knows me well enough to know I’m not the sort of person who backs down easily. When I want something badly enough, I get it.

Eventually.

“You can’t stay there all night,” he says.

He’s right. I can’t spend all my time guarding the basement door. At some point, I’ll have to eat and sleep and use the toilet. Or else he’ll go back to work and use the phone there to call for help. When Tegan first got here, the threat of imprisonment was enough to keep Hank under control, but not anymore. I have to make sure he does the right thing, even when I’m not around. He needs to recognize how serious this is.

“If you take her to the hospital,” I say quietly, “I’ll kill myself.”

As the words leave my mouth, I realize it’s not an idle threat. I mean what I’m saying. I want this so badly, and if he takes it away from me when I’m this close, I won’t be able to go on. After all, I already tried to end it once.

It all started when I was working a shift in the newborn nursery. It was back when I was struggling with infertility and there were no adoption prospects. In other words, it was the most painful place to be. But I believed I could handle it. And for most of the shift, I was fine. I was, after all, a professional.

The next morning, when my shift came to an end, I was sitting in a rocking chair, holding one of the newborns. And I just…I wouldn’t give him back. I remember one of the other nurses shaking my shoulder and telling me it was time for me to go home. But I just kept staring down at that sweet little face. I didn’t want to give him up—not when they asked me nicely and not when the requests became more stern. Even when the security guard showed up, I refused to budge.

My supervisor called Hank at home. He came rushing over to the hospital, and he sat with me and coaxed me into returning the infant. Thankfully, the parents never found out what I did. If they had, there might have been criminal charges filed. But as it was, the hospital agreed to deal with it quietly. I handed in my resignation, and that night, I went to the bathroom and took every pill in the medicine cabinet.

I remember Hank shouting my name, trying desperately to wake me up. I had never seen him quite so scared. He must have called for an ambulance, because the next thing I knew, I was in a hospital bed, an IV in my arm, disappointed to still be alive. A mandatory stay in a psychiatric hospital followed, which ruined my chances of adopting or fostering a child for good.

There have been times when I was grateful that Hank saved me from taking my own life. Now is one of the times—when the prospect of becoming a mother is so real, I can taste it. But if he takes that away from me, I know what I have to do.

And this time, I’ll get it right.

Hank’s eyes fly open wide, and he takes a step back. He was worried about going to jail, but he’s much more worried about this. “You don’t mean that.”

“I mean it. I promise you.”

“Polly…”

“You take her to the hospital,” I say, “and when you get back, you’ll find me dead.”

His mouth opens, but no words come out.

“And I won’t mess around like last time,” I add. “I learned my lesson.”

I get a flashback to the terrified look on his face when he was shaking me awake after I took all those pills. I’ve never seen Hank as scared as he was that day. He will do anything to keep that from happening again.

At least that’s what I’m counting on.

“Then you’re coming with me,” he says.

“Oh really?” My right eyebrow shoots up. “You going to tie me up and make me?”

He can’t force me to go with him to the emergency room, and he knows it. If he betrays me, I’m going to make sure I’m gone by the time he gets back and that there will be no saving me this time.

“Please don’t be like that, Polly,” he manages. “I…I love you.”

“I love you too.” I lift my chin. “But that doesn’t change a thing.”

He studies my face, trying to figure out if I mean it. Whatever he sees makes him take another step back, his hands in the air. “We’re going to talk about this later.”

“We can talk about it all you want,” I reply.

I don’t add the obvious: But it won’t change my mind.