She shook her head harder.
“She was talking to a doctor,” Emily said. “The one with the silver watch. She said you signed papers. But you didn’t. I know you didn’t.”
A chill crept up my spine.
Earlier that morning, in the middle of labor, someone had placed papers in front of me. I remembered the pain, the contractions tearing through me, the room spinning. I remembered a pen slipping from my fingers. I remembered Linda standing close. Mark nearby. Voices urging me to sign.
I hadn’t even known what I was signing.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway.
A cart rolled closer.
Voices approached the door.
Emily dropped to the floor and lifted the edge of the bed skirt.
“Please,” she whispered. “Just trust me.”
Every logical thought screamed that this was impossible. Ridiculous. Paranoid.
But another instinct, deeper and older, the one that had protected my daughter since the day she was born, rose louder than logic.
Ignoring the pain, I slid off the bed and crawled underneath just as the door handle turned.
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