Chapter 3 - The House on Legare Street
The waiting room of Harbor Regional Medical Center smelled of floor wax and old coffee.
It was seven in the morning now. The rain outside had settled into a steady, grey drizzle that blurred the high windows of the modern brick pavilion. Caleb Rowan sat in the corner, his back pressed against the vinyl wall, his hands tucked between his knees to stop them from shaking.
He had washed his hands in the sink of the family restroom, scrubbing until his skin was red and raw, but he could still smell the metallic tang of the blood under his fingernails.
The double doors of the surgical wing remained closed. Every time a nurse or a doctor in green scrubs walked through, Caleb stood up, his body tensing like a spring, only to sink back down when they passed him without looking up.
His phone was still dead. He had found a charger behind the reception desk, but his hands had been too unsteady to plug it in. Now, the small black device sat on the table beside him, its green charging light blinking with a slow, mechanical pulse.
Ten percent.
He picked it up, turned it on, and waited for the screen to clear.
The first thing that appeared was a text message notification from his mother. It had been sent twenty minutes ago.
Caleb, darling. I’ve been trying to reach you. I saw your truck was gone from the driveway. Are you alright? Please call me as soon as you get this.
The language was so normal. It was the language of a mother who worried about her son’s long night on the highway. It had no relation to the photograph she had sent two hours earlier, or the seventeen missed calls from a dying woman that she had ignored.
Caleb did not text her back. He stood up, his joints popping with a dry, sharp sound, and walked to the payphone near the exit. He didn't want to use his cell; he wanted the distance of the old-fashioned line, the physical distance of the copper wires.
He dialed the number he had known since he was a child.
"Caleb?" his mother's voice was immediate, warm, and slightly breathless. "Oh, thank goodness. I've been sick with worry. I saw the truck was gone and the gate was open—"
"Lorraine," Caleb said. He did not call her Mother. He had not used her first name since he was twelve years old, and the word felt cold and heavy in his mouth, like a key that didn't fit the lock.
There was a short, sharp silence on the other end of the line. The warmth vanished from her voice, replaced by the dry, defensive tone she used whenever her authority was questioned.
"Caleb? Why are you calling me by my name? What’s happened?"
"Hannah is in surgery," Caleb said, his voice flat, carrying no emotion because he had none left to give. "She’s had a placental abruption. They’re trying to save the baby."
"Oh," Lorraine said. The sound was small, a little puff of air. "Oh, how dreadful. But Caleb, darling, I told her... I told her she should stay quiet. She was so hysterical when she called me. You know how she gets. She always makes such a mountain out of every little pain—"
"You took her phone, Lorraine," Caleb said.
"I... what? I don't know what you're talking about, Caleb. I was at home. I was in bed—"
"The doctor," Caleb interrupted, his voice rising slightly, attracting the look of a passing security guard. "Dr. Morgan was at the house. He came because Hannah called the office emergency line. He was trying to help her. And you... you took a photo of him from your car. You sent it to me."
"Caleb, really—"
"You sent it to me to make me think she was with another man," Caleb said, his teeth clenched so tightly his jaw ached. "You wanted me to walk into that room and see the doctor's coat and think she was cheating on me. You wanted me to leave her there."
"That is a lie!" Lorraine’s voice cracked, the genteel Charleston accent slipping to reveal the sharp, thin steel beneath. "I was trying to protect you! I saw that man's car there at three in the morning, Caleb! A strange man in your house while you were on the road! What was I supposed to think? I was only looking out for your interests!"
"She was bleeding to death, Lorraine," Caleb said, his voice dropping into a whisper that was more terrifying than a scream. "She called you for help because she couldn't stand up. She called you seventeen times before that because my phone was dead. And you told her the hospital said she should lie down and wait."
"I... I didn't know," Lorraine stammered, but her voice lacked conviction. It was the sound of a woman who had been caught with her hand in the drawer but was still trying to explain why the money belonged to her. "I thought she was just... you know how she exaggerates, Caleb. She’s always wanted to draw you away from your family. She’s always wanted to make you choose."
"You chose for me," Caleb said.
"Caleb—"
"Do not call my phone again," he said, and hung up the receiver.
He stood by the payphone for a long time, his hand still resting on the cold black plastic. His chest felt hollow, as if his mother’s voice had scooped out everything that made him a son, leaving only the empty, echoing shell of a husband.
He walked back to the waiting room.
The green light on his phone was solid now. He picked it up and opened the call log again.
He noticed something he had missed in his first frantic search.
The incoming call from his mother’s number at four-ten—the one that had lasted four minutes—had not been a conversation. It was a recorded message. Hannah’s phone had answered automatically, or she had pressed the button in her confusion before dropping the device.
Caleb tapped the recording.
The sound that came through the speaker was not his mother's voice.
It was the sound of a car engine idling, the rhythmic tick-tick-tick of a turn signal, and the distant, muffled sound of a radio playing a jazz station.
Then came his mother’s voice, speaking to someone else in the car.
"She’s still calling," Lorraine said. Her voice was clear, dry, and completely calm. "She’s called twelve times now. She says there’s blood. She’s probably just trying to get him to turn the truck around."
Another voice answered—a man's voice, low and hesitant. "Lorraine, if she's bleeding, we should call the ambulance. We're only two blocks away. We could go in."
"No," Lorraine said, her voice dropping into that cold, hard register she used when she was making a decision for the family. "If we call the ambulance, the neighbors will see. It will be in the Post and Courier. 'Rowan Family Emergency.' We don't need that kind of attention, Arthur. She can wait until Caleb gets home. He’ll see what she’s like when she’s like this. He’ll see she can’t handle it."
The recording ended with the sharp click of the phone being disconnected.
Caleb felt the room go cold.
The man’s voice on the recording belonged to Arthur Rowan, his uncle—his father’s younger brother who lived on Legare Street in the historic district. Arthur was a quiet, weak-willed man who had spent his life doing whatever Lorraine told him to do to maintain the family’s social standing.
They had been in the car together. They had been sitting at the end of the street, watching his house, while his wife was on the floor, her life leaking out onto the white rug.
"Mr. Rowan?"
Caleb looked up.
May you like
A tall man in blue scrubs, his surgical mask hanging around his neck, stood in the doorway of the waiting room. His hands were damp, and his face was lined with a deep, grey exhaustion that made him look twenty years older than he was.
It was Dr. Morgan.
