Chapter 15 Nancy
FIFTEEN
NANCY
The thick smoke in the break room made my eyes water and my throat constrict.
Dr. Marney sat at the table with cigarettes spilling from the overfilled ashtray in front of him.
Three junior doctors traded dirty jokes while eating sad-looking sandwiches.
Even they couldn’t stomach the meals from the kitchen.
Robert was there too, his tie loose around his neck and cigarette between his fingers.
All heads turned to me when I shut the door behind me.
Their chatter died at my feminine intrusion.
‘Dr. Marney,’ I said, fighting the nervous waver in my voice.
He didn’t bother to look up at me straight away. He took a long drag from his smoke before tapping the ash into the tray, and only then lifted his eyes.
‘Can I help you, Nurse?’
Every nerve in my body screamed at me to keep my mouth shut. But Ginny’s bloodied face and her terrified sobs pushed me onward.
‘It’s about the new patient. Ginny. Someone’s tormenting her. She shouldn’t be here. She’s just a girl, and she’s pregnant. Why are we keeping her?’
The room stilled, and one of the younger doctors smirked into his cup.
‘She belongs here.’ Marney’s lip curled as if placating a child.
‘Why? Surely there are notes on why she was admitted?’
The muscles in his jaw worked as he turned his head slowly toward me, a look of sheer devilry in his grey eyes. Marney wasn’t an unattractive man, but it was like the horrors beneath the surface leaked out if you gazed at him too long.
‘Her files are confidential, Nurse,’ he said, each word like a sharp slice of a scalpel.
The junior doctors shifted uncomfortably, glancing between themselves. Robert’s face darkened as he glared at me. Not with outrage on my behalf, but with embarrassment. He stared at the floor with his fists balled at his sides. I’d get an earful from him on the car ride home.
Marney leaned back in his chair, cold fury crossing his face. ‘Do you imagine yourself in a position to question me? In my hospital? In front of my staff?’
Heat flushed my neck as my insides squirmed. But I maintained eye contact. Backing down would only show him weakness, and he was predatory enough.
The silence edged onward, until he shrugged and turned from me. The men gave brittle laughs as he cracked a joke, likely at my expense.
I stood there with my pulse thundering in my ears.
If he didn’t want me near the files, then that was exactly where I needed to go.
Robert caught up with me before I’d reached the stairs. His hand clamped around my arm, yanking me back and throwing me against the wall. My breath left in a pained huff as I shrank beneath his glare.
‘What the fuck was that?’ Fury filled his words, the kind of tone that I only heard when I’d made him really mad. Like the last time I’d lost the baby. Or the time I hit the mailbox with his car. His face was so tight and red that I thought his skin might crack right open.
‘I—’
‘Why the fuck are you all up in your head about some stupid slut of a patient from bum-fuck nowhere?’ Globs of spit flew at my face with every word.
‘You think you can act a fool in front of Marney? In front of the other doctors? The way you act comes back on me. You’re my wife. What you do is a direct affront on me.’
I tried to shrink away from him, but there was nowhere to go. His stale coffee and smoke laced breath made me shudder.
‘Robert—’
‘Keep it up,’ he hissed, eyes glittering with something much like madness, ‘and I’ll teach you a lesson. I’ve been sweet on you for too long Nancy, not all husbands are so kind.’
His threat was clear.
‘What are you going to do? Punch me in front of your boss?’
Robert gave a humourless bark of a laugh.
‘No. I’ll bend you over right there in the staff room and fuck you while they watch. Let them see exactly what kind of whore you truly are. They’ll lose the minuscule amount of respect they have for you in a heartbeat.’
He ground his hips into me hard enough that the wall scraped my spine through my uniform. His face was inches from mine, anger giving way to hunger in the dark pools of his eyes. What had gotten into him?
And in that moment, I saw the same look I’d seen in Marney and the other monstrous doctors who prowled the asylum halls.
Fear itched beneath my skin.
‘Robert, please,’ I said, my voice trembling. ‘I’m not trying to make you mad. I just…I want to help Ginny. She’s scared. She’s—‘
‘Help her? No, Nancy. You pretend it’s about helping the girl, but I know you. It’s because you want to sweep in and take her baby, isn’t it?’ Cruelty nipped at his words.
‘No! God, no. I would never.’
His hand slid from my arm to my throat, pressing just enough to cut my words off.
‘Wouldn’t you?’ His accusation made my stomach turn.
Shame and fury collided in my chest. For one awful second, I couldn’t breathe. Not from the hand on my neck, but from the kernel of truth in his words.
Because I’d pictured holding Ginny’s sweet babe in my arms, wriggling and squealing and rescuing it from those horrid walls.
No.
Robert was putting his thoughts into my head. I was trying to help the girl. Not hurt her.