Page 26 of Unwell
No, not Nancy.
She was true and would be my salvation. The baby and me.
She had to be.
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. Hetook 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 aposition to question me? Inmyhospital? In front ofmystaff?’
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 comesback 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.
