36. Declan #2
Hutch leans back without rescuing me from the table. “Read-back, two copies on separate screens, and the reader logs which version was opened.”
“Add it,” Cruz tells Bones, then looks at me. “The safeguard stays if you ever wear rank again. It also stays if you don’t.”
“That’s why I’m asking for it.” I close the notebook after making sure the last line is actually the last. Nobody hands me a patch or calls it brave. Cruz moves to the next rule, and the new rule makes it harder for one proud man to endanger everyone.
Avery waits near the hall while the table finishes.
She has one hand inside her coat pocket and the other around her phone, not because she fears the men here but because Sasha taught her every familiar building can hold a person who arrived early.
When I stop several feet away, she checks the clock above the bar.
“My appointment is in forty minutes,” she says, keeping the invitation inside the sentence instead of making me guess. “Dr. Evans is doing the full follow-up after the shooting. You may attend the entire appointment if you want to.”
I have waited through months of dates I wasn’t allowed to know and one heartbeat heard from a chair across the room. I start to move beside her because I want this too badly, then stop before I take distance she did not offer. “I want to. Do you want me to drive separately?”
“Yes. Meet me in the clinic lobby. You can ask questions about the baby’s health and the delivery plan. You don’t get my chart, passwords, or future dates unless I give them to you.”
I grip the notebook beneath my arm instead of reaching for the keys already in her hand. “I’ll follow you to the lobby and no further than the room you put me in.”
At the clinic, Avery signs the visitor permission herself and writes that it expires when today’s appointment ends.
I read the form before I sign the acknowledgment beneath it.
The receptionist offers to point out the line, then lets her finger fall when I use the text reader on my phone and follow the words on the page.
Avery watches from three feet away with both hands on her bag and lets me finish the line myself.
It hurts less than it used to, because this time the choice belongs to her instead of my shame.
Dr. Evans brings us into the exam room and asks Avery where she wants me.
Avery points to the chair near the wall.
I sit there with my notebook open while the monitor catches the heartbeat and the baby kicks hard enough to shift the sensor.
I hear our child and remember how certain I was that losing rank was the worst thing Cruz could take from me.
I don’t ask whether Avery has learned the sex, whether she chose a name, or whether the birth plan includes me.
Those are not health questions. They are access I haven’t been given.
“The monitoring after the shooting looked normal the entire time,” Dr. Evans says, showing Avery the measurements before she turns the screen far enough for me to see.
“Growth is on track. Blood pressure is good. The bruise should continue improving, and the sleep disruption may take longer than the bruise.” Before she moves on, she sets a sealed white envelope on the counter, says the sex is written inside from today’s images, and tells Avery nobody in this office will open it for her.
Avery takes it in both hands, puts it in her coat pocket without breaking the seal, and asks how long the bruise will keep waking her at night.
I write the answer down and say nothing about the envelope.
I write sleep, movement, bleeding, tightening, headache, and call.
The list looks ugly in my handwriting, so I read it back instead of hiding the page.
“If nightmares keep her awake, when does that become something she should call you about? What changes in movement mean she calls today instead of waiting? If labor starts early, which entrance is open at night?”
Dr. Evans answers Avery first each time, then waits while I repeat the instruction in my own words.
Avery corrects me once when I put the after-hours number beneath the wrong heading.
I draw an arrow, move it, and keep the notebook open on my knee.
Sasha once made correction feel like admiration because she smiled while she did it.
Avery handles a mistake of mine the way she handles a wrong date on a form and goes straight back to the doctor.
When the examination ends, Dr. Evans asks whether Avery wants me present for scheduling. Avery says no. I close the notebook, thank the doctor, and stand with my eyes on the door handle while the nurse brings Avery future forms.
Outside the clinic, Avery pauses beside her car.
The wind lifts the edge of her green coat, and I remember taking it from her shoulders in our old kitchen before either of us knew Sasha’s name.
The memory makes me want an ordinary thing so badly I nearly ask whether she ate lunch.
I close my hand around the truck key in my pocket and wait for the reason she stopped.
“You asked useful questions,” she says, one hand flat on the top of the car door. “I didn’t have to check whether you understood the answers.”
Praise used to make me ask for more. A touch, another appointment, dinner, the right to call later. I put the notebook beneath my cut and leave the invitation where she ended it. “Thank you for letting me hear them.”
Avery studies me as though she expected the old demand to arrive after the gratitude.
When the quiet holds, she gets into her car and drives toward the home where I have no key.
I walk to my truck with one page of instructions folded into the notebook, and I sit in the cab with my hands on the wheel until her taillights clear the intersection, and only then do I start the engine.