Chapter 2
I call the insurance company on my lunch break.
Not from the break room — from the stairwell between the third and fourth floors, where the signal is terrible and nobody goes except maintenance. I sit on the concrete step with my back against the wall and my badge flipped around so my name faces my chest.
The hold music is a jazz rendition of something that used to be a pop song. I can't place it. I wait eleven minutes.
"Thank you for holding, this is Keisha, how can I help you?"
"I received a denial letter for a claim I didn't file." I keep my voice level. Professional. The voice I use with agitated patients — calm without being condescending. "I need to understand what happened."
"I can pull that up. Can I get your member ID and date of birth?"
I give her both. The old member ID, the one from the letter. I hear her typing.
"Okay, I see the claim here. Lakeview Behavioral Health Center, dates of service March 14 through 17, 2025. It was denied because your coverage under this plan terminated January 31, 2025. The claim was filed... looks like April 2025, so about a month after services."
"Who filed the claim?"
"It was submitted by the facility. Standard billing."
"Can you tell me what the charges were for? Specifically."
More typing. "I'm showing a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold. Physician services, facility fee, pharmacy charges. Total billed was $4,200."
I close my eyes. "And because the plan was terminated, it was denied."
"That's correct. We sent the denial to the address on file — looks like that would be..." She reads my old apartment address. The one Drew and I lived in before we bought the house.
"That letter just reached me," I say. "Forwarding delay."
"Oh, that happens. Is there anything else I can—"
"One more thing. The attending physician listed on the claim. Can you confirm that name for me?"
Typing. "Colette Marchetti, PMHNP."
I press my free hand to my wrist. I don't count this time. I just feel it. Thump. Thump. Thump. Still there. Still real.
"Thank you," I say. "That's all I need."
I hang up and sit in the stairwell for another three minutes. The concrete is cold through my scrubs. Someone opens the door two flights up and I hear the echo of footsteps going down, away from me.
So it's real.
Not a clerical error. Not a name mix-up. Not some insurance processing glitch where my information ended up on someone else's file. Colette's name is on the claim. Lakeview billed for services rendered to me. Seventy-two hours.
March 14 through 17.
I pull up my calendar from last year. I switched to a new app in January so the old entries are archived, but they're still there. March 14: nothing. March 15: nothing. March 16: nothing. March 17: "Back from Mom's — grocery run."
That's it. Four days of nothing and then groceries.
I open my texts with Drew. Scroll back. The scroll takes forever — fourteen months of "what do you want for dinner" and "running late" and "love you." I get to March and slow down.
March 13, Drew to me: Hey, I talked to your mom. She's really looking forward to seeing you. I think this'll be good.
March 13, me to Drew: I don't remember agreeing to go this weekend?
March 13, Drew to me: Babe. You agreed last night. Remember? We talked about it after dinner. You said you needed to get away.
I stare at that exchange. I don't remember that conversation. I don't remember agreeing. But I also don't remember NOT agreeing — which is the thing about gaps. They don't announce themselves. They just sit there, empty, and you fill them in with whatever makes the most sense.
March 14, Drew to me: Text me when you get to your mom's. Love you. So much.
March 14, me to Drew: Here. Tired. Going to sleep early.
But did I send that? I was here, in the city — or forty minutes north of it. Was I already at Lakeview when that text went out? Did someone else send it from my phone?
I scroll further.
March 15, nothing from me. March 16, nothing from me.
March 17, me to Drew: Coming home tonight. Miss you.
And Drew: Thank god. I'm making pasta. Drive safe.
Three days of silence and he didn't check on me once. Didn't call. Didn't text. Didn't drive to Harrisburg to make sure I was okay.
Because someone told him not to. Someone told him I needed space. Someone told him calling would make it worse.
I know who told him.
I scroll one more time. Forward past March. Into April. Looking for — I don't know. Evidence that someone checked on me after.
April 2, Colette to me: Hey babe! How are you feeling? Let's do dinner this week. My treat. You deserve a night out. ??
April 2, me to Colette: Feeling good! Yes please. Thursday?
April 3, Colette to me: Thursday is perfect. I'll book that place you love. So glad you're back to yourself. I was really worried for a while there. ??
Back to yourself. Worried for a while there.
She was monitoring. Checking her work. Making sure the version of me that came home from Lakeview was functional enough to not raise questions — but documented enough that if anyone ever asked, the narrative was already in the text thread.
"She was struggling. I was worried. She got help. She's better now."
A story written in emoji hearts and brunch reservations.
The stairwell door opens below me. I hear sneakers on the steps, someone taking them two at a time. I stand up, brush off my scrubs, flip my badge back around.
"Hey, Wren." It's Tomás from respiratory, taking the shortcut to the fifth floor. "You okay? You look—"
"Fine," I say. "Just needed quiet for a phone call."
He nods, doesn't push. Keeps climbing.
I go back to the unit. I have a med pass at one and a family meeting at two and a patient in room 4 who's been refusing meals since yesterday. I have a job to do. I have fourteen hours of acting normal ahead of me.
But first, I pull up my phone one more time. I find the text thread with Colette.
I scroll to March of last year.
March 12, Colette to me: Hey, I'm worried about you. You seemed really off at dinner. Are you sleeping?
March 13, Colette to me: I talked to Drew. He's worried too. Please don't be mad — I just love you and I don't want you to burn out. You work too hard.
March 13, me to Colette: I'm fine. Everyone needs to stop worrying.
March 13, Colette to me: I know you think you're fine. That's what scares me. I just worry about you. ??
I just worry about you.
Four words. Said with love. Received with love. Meant as a leash.
She was laying groundwork. March 12 — "you seemed off." March 13 — "I talked to Drew." She was building a narrative. Concerned friend notices warning signs. Tells husband. Husband agrees something is wrong. By March 14, the story was already written. All she needed was a signature.
And Drew gave it to her. Because she framed it exactly the way you'd frame it for a worried husband: your wife is in danger. I can help. Trust me. I'm a professional.
I know this because I've done it. Not like this — god, not like this — but I've called family members and said those words.
"I'm concerned about your loved one. Here's what I'm seeing.
Here's what I recommend." I've watched the relief on their faces when someone with credentials confirms their worst fear and offers a solution.
She used my profession against me. She spoke his language — the language of the concerned spouse — and she spoke mine — the language of clinical authority — and she made them mean the same thing.
My phone buzzes. Colette again.
Everything okay? You didn't answer earlier. Want to grab lunch tomorrow instead?
I type back before I can think about it.
Sorry! Crazy shift. Tomorrow works. Same place? ?
Send.
I watch the delivered receipt appear. Then the read receipt. Then the three dots.
Yay! 12:30? I'll save our table. ??
I put my phone away.
I'm not going to confront her. Not yet. Not until I understand the full shape of what she did.
You don't interrupt someone during an intake assessment — you let them talk.
You let them build their story. You write it all down.
And then you read it back to them in a room full of people who can take their license away.
I walk back onto the unit. The doors close behind me with that heavy mechanical click — the sound of a locked ward. I hear it every day. Two hundred and forty shifts a year, that sound.
I never thought about what it sounds like from the other side.
The med cart is where I left it. My patients are where I left them. Room 4 still hasn't eaten. The whiteboard at the nurses' station has my name in blue marker next to the afternoon assignments.
Everything is exactly where it was three hours ago.
Everything is completely different.
I pull the letter from my pocket, fold it smaller, tuck it into the inside pocket of my jacket hanging in the break room. Then I wash my hands — the way I always do before a med pass. Soap, water, friction. Twenty seconds. Automatic.
I catch my own eyes in the mirror above the sink.
March of last year. I was tired. I was working too much. I was short-tempered and skipping meals and falling asleep on the couch before Drew came to bed. All of that is true.
None of that is a reason to lock someone up.
Tired isn't a diagnosis. Overworked isn't a danger to self. Falling asleep on the couch is not a presenting symptom of anything except being a nurse in an understaffed hospital.
But I know — I know professionally, with fourteen years of training — how easy it is to write it differently.
How "tired and overworked" becomes "patient exhibits signs of depressive episode with psychomotor retardation.
" How "skipping meals" becomes "decreased appetite consistent with MDD.
" How "fell asleep on the couch" becomes "hypersomnia. "
She translated my life into a chart. And charts don't lie.
Except when they do.
I dry my hands. I check my pulse one more time — force of habit, or something else now. Eighty. Higher than baseline.
I go back to work.
But I keep my phone face-down for the rest of the shift, because if I look at Colette's name one more time — those hearts, those emojis, that performed warmth — I'll call her. And when I call her, she'll hear it in my voice. And she's trained to hear it. She reads people for a living, same as me.
So I wait. I chart. I pass meds. I check on room 4.
And I think about the week in March that I lost.