“At home.”
“Now you’re home?”
Ryan gripped the edge of the table. “Please. Is she with you?”
Another silence followed, heavier this time.
“I’m not telling you anything,” Maya said. “You can speak to the hospital or the police.”
“The hospital?” he breathed. “Which hospital?”
But Maya had already hung up.
Ryan stood so quickly the chair scraped the tile.
The officer stepped forward. “Mr. Parker.”
“She’s at a hospital,” Ryan said. “She’s alive.”
The words should have brought relief. Instead, they opened a new chamber of fear.
Because if Emma was alive and had not called him, then she had chosen not to.
Or someone had helped her choose.
The officer asked for Maya’s number. Ryan gave it. He gave them Emma’s obstetrician’s name, Ethan’s pediatrician, the name of the nanny who was supposed to start that morning. Each answer made him feel more exposed. He knew the practical details of his life the way he knew the features of his car: payment amounts, schedules, warranties. But he did not know the things a husband should have known without thinking.
He did not know Emma’s current blood pressure medication.
He did not know the name of the nurse she liked at her OB’s office.
He did not know where she kept the emergency folder she had once told him about while he was looking at his phone.
The officers eventually stepped into the hallway to speak privately. Ryan heard fragments.
Postpartum hemorrhage.
Delayed care.
Neighbor statement.
Infant removed safely.
Neighbor.
Ryan’s head lifted.
“Which neighbor?” he asked.
The older officer, Sergeant Hall, turned back toward him. “Mr. Parker, we’re still gathering information.”
“Who found them?”
Sergeant Hall studied him for a moment. “A woman named Ruth Bellamy.”
Ryan blinked. “Ruth?”
Ruth Bellamy lived next door in the old brick house with blue shutters. She was in her seventies, maybe older. Emma had taken banana bread to her after a hip surgery last year. Ryan remembered being annoyed because Emma had asked him to shovel Ruth’s walkway once during a storm.
“She heard the baby crying,” Sergeant Hall said. “Your front door was unlocked.”
Ryan looked toward the entryway.
He had left in a hurry Friday. Suitcase in one hand, phone in the other, angry at Emma for making him feel guilty.
Had he even locked the door?
The sergeant continued. “Mrs. Bellamy called emergency services. She also performed basic first aid until paramedics arrived.”
Ryan sank back into the chair.
Ruth Bellamy had heard his son crying.
A woman he had barely acknowledged had walked into his house and done what he refused to do.
By late afternoon, Ryan learned the hospital name from the police, not from Emma. St. Anne’s Medical Center. Twenty-two minutes away. He tried to leave immediately, but Sergeant Hall stopped him.
“Mr. Parker, you should understand something before you go,” he said.
Ryan paused with his keys in hand.
“Your wife has requested that you not be admitted to her room without approval.”
The sentence hit harder than any accusation.
“She’s my wife.”
“She is also a patient recovering from a medical emergency.”
“And Ethan?”
“Your son is under medical observation, but stable. Access is restricted.”
Ryan’s mouth went dry. “Restricted from me?”
“For now.”
“For now,” he repeated.
Sergeant Hall’s expression did not change. “I suggest you contact an attorney before attempting anything impulsive.”
Ryan almost snapped that he did not need advice from a policeman standing in his kitchen. The words rose automatically, shaped by years of believing irritation was the same as authority.
Then he looked past the sergeant into the nursery.