Fuck those birth parents! My husband beat me so badly I ended up in the ICU on oxygen, eight-month belly black with bruises.
I called my parents begging to stay temporarily; they answered coldly, “You chose him, you deal with it.”
I whispered, “I understand.”
The oxygen tube had rubbed the skin under my nose raw. Every breath carried that faint plastic taste, and sleep felt impossible after the ambulance ride.
Nina, the night nurse, pulled another blanket over my legs and told me the irritation might ease if I could rest. But the only sound I cared about was coming from the monitor strapped across my eight-month belly.
My daughter’s heartbeat.
Fast. Steady. Still there.
One sock had twisted halfway around my foot, but fixing it meant bending across the monitor, so I left it alone.
After Nina carried away my cup of melted ice, I reached beneath my pillow and pulled out the phone I had hidden before my husband could take it from me.
Eleven percent battery.
Six months earlier, my parents had needed me to co-sign the installment agreement on a small house outside Columbus. Their credit still hadn’t recovered from an old business loan, and the bank wouldn’t approve the final transfer without my signature.
They had arrived at my apartment with grocery-store cupcakes and a silver spare key hanging from a red plastic tag.
My mother pressed it into my palm.
“You’ll always have a room with us.”
That key was still inside the zippered pocket of my purse, three feet from my hospital bed.
And the two people who had given it to me had just refused to let their pregnant daughter sleep under their roof for one night.
So I opened the bank agreement.
Thirty-six pages.
I had read every page before signing it. My husband had laughed at how long I took, standing over my shoulder until I finally finished.
Near the bottom of page twenty-nine, I found the clause I remembered.
A guarantor could withdraw before the final transfer if the bank received written notice before funding.
Funding was scheduled for 8:15 the next morning.
Sometime after midnight, I called the number beneath the clause. While the blood-pressure cuff tightened around my bruised arm, a recorded voice asked what kind of account I needed help with.
I pressed three. Then seven.
The hold music sounded absurdly cheerful in an ICU room.
When a lending officer finally answered, I gave him my name, the property address, and the last four digits of the agreement.
He noticed the hospital number.
“Why are you calling from there?”
I stared at the dark television across from my bed.
“I am withdrawing my guarantee.”
His keyboard stopped clicking.
He asked whether anyone was pressuring me.
“No.”
He asked whether I understood my parents might lose the property.
“Yes.”
Then my phone vibrated.
My mother.
She reminded me that I needed to appear at the bank at 8:15 in clean clothes because the seller would be there.
Another message followed.
Don’t embarrass us tomorrow.
I turned off the vibration.
The lending officer emailed the revocation form and stayed on the line while I filled it out with one shaking finger. I erased the date twice because my hand wouldn’t stay steady.
Then the oxygen sensor slipped from my index finger and dropped onto the sheet.