I looked at her.
“Tell them it was an accident.”
For several seconds, I could not answer.
I thought maybe I had heard her wrong.
This was the woman who had hit me while I was holding a newborn.
My daughter had been carried into an emergency room without a detectable pulse.
Doctors were performing CPR.
And Patricia’s first concern was the story I told them.
She was not asking whether Lily was alive.
She was not asking what the doctors had said.
She was not asking whether there was anything she could do.
She wanted me to protect her.
Daniel stopped beside us.
“Emily, what did the doctor say?”
I looked at him, then back at Patricia.
She kept watching me.
Her face had the rigid, controlled look she had worn back in the hallway after Lily fell.
As if the biggest danger in that hospital was not what had happened to Lily.
It was what might come out of my mouth.
Something inside me settled.
Not grief.
The grief was still there, huge and terrifying, waiting behind every thought.
Not fear either.
I was afraid of what was happening behind those emergency-room doors in a way I had never been afraid of anything before.
What settled inside me was clarity.
At home, Patricia had acted immediately.
She had denied hitting me.
She had blamed exhaustion.
She had told Daniel I did not know what I was saying.
Now, at the hospital, before even asking about Lily, she was telling me to call it an accident.
Those were not the actions of someone focused on a baby in danger.
They were the actions of someone focused on protecting herself.
I thought about Daniel’s hesitation in the hallway.
I thought about Patricia saying, “She dropped the baby.”
I thought about the burning on my cheek.
Then I looked toward the emergency-room doors where doctors were trying to bring my daughter back.
There was no version of this night where I was going to make Patricia comfortable by changing the truth.
Daniel said my name again.
“Emily?”
Patricia moved half a step closer.
Her voice dropped.
“Think about what you’re saying.”
I did.
For the first time since the slap, I felt completely certain about what came next.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.