*
When I heard Robert’s keys in the door, I rose from my chair. I spied him at the end of the corridor, his tie pulled loose, his face concerned. “Grace. Are you okay?”
I stumbled toward him. “No. I’m not okay.”
“What is it?” he asked. “What’s happened?”
I let out a sob. “There’s … there’s been a complaint made against me … with the Board of Nursing … by a doctor.”
Robert stepped away from me. “What?”
“It’s about the baby I delivered last night. She was born with a cleft lip and palate. We delivered her here then transferred both mother and baby to the hospital. The doctor—he went ballistic. Said he would report me.”
“What has he reported you for?”
“He says delivering a baby with a cleft palate was too high-risk to attempt at home, and also that I shouldn’t have transferred a patient with a perineal tear.”
“Did you know the baby had a cleft palate?” Robert’s expression was curiously blank. His voice was low and steady, his tone unreadable.
“Once labor had started … yes.”
“And the tear?” he asked.
“I knew about the tear, but I thought it was best for the patient and baby to—”
“Fuck, Grace!”
Robert’s outburst was so unexpected, I jumped.
“This is great, this is just … fantastic.”
“Robert, what’s wrong?”
He began to pace. “Do you have any idea how much shit I am in if I lose my job? Do you? We won’t even be able to make the next mortgage payment. That’s what we signed up for when we moved here. Every day I go into work, wondering if today’s the day I’m going to bring home my stuff in a cardboard box. I’m worrying about you and our future. Meanwhile, you’re taking unnecessary risks and putting our family at risk! For what?”
Robert stopped pacing and pressed his fingertips into his eye sockets. His cheeks were red. “We need your income, Grace. It may not be huge, but we rely on it. We can’t afford for you to take risks. Not right now.” He let out a long sigh and looked at me. The heat in his face was gone. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted.”
“It’s all right,” I said automatically.
“It’s not. It’s just … a rough time right now. And I need you to be at work. I don’t have room in my head to deal with anything else.”
“Okay.”
I stood before him, shell-shocked. In our entire marriage, Robert had shouted only a handful of times. Once after I fell asleep at the wheel, driving home from a birth, and wrapped the car around a tree. (His anger was out of concern for me, rather than about the car.) Another time when Neva was nine and she ran onto the road after her Frisbee. Once when I taped The Golden Girls over the video of him skydiving in Australia. He was always apologetic afterwards, but this time I got the feeling that his anger remained. And I hadn’t even told him the full story. I lowered my gaze and whispered: “I can’t deliver any babies until after the investigation, Robert.”
Robert’s eyes bugged. “What?”
“My license is suspended. I can’t do any more deliveries. So I won’t be getting an income.”
Robert stared at me. The disbelief in his expression was much worse than the shouting. When my phone started ringing, Robert turned on his heel.
“Robert, wait.”
“I’m taking a shower,” he said, without turning around. His tone indicated this conversation was over, at least for today.
My phone was still ringing. Numbly I wandered over to it, picked it up. “Uh, hello? Grace Bradley.”
“Grace, it’s Lil. You mom is in the hospital.”