Chapter 25 A Small Bag

“Play it again p>

Isolde did not. She held the clean phone in both hands, thumbs braced along the edge as if the plastic might become guilty if she pressed. hard enough.

“Aveline p>

“Again p>

“We heard it p>

“I need the exact words p>

The baby shifted low, a slow drag of pressure that made me put one palm against the underside of my stomach and wait until the room stopped narrowing. The safe room was not large enough for panic-it had a narrow bed, a dresser, 2 mismatched chairs, and a square table already covered in paper. There was nowhere dramatic for fear to go; it had to stand beside the printer and behave itself.

The unauthorized appointment had changed the air. Before the voicemail, danger had felt like pursuit-public statement, legal filing, a man outside a chain lock. After it, danger had a calendar invite, a fasting requirement, transport. Someone I had not spoken to had put my body into tomorrow morning as if consent were a box family counsel could check on my behalf. That made the room feel less temporary – it made it feel targeted.

Isolde looked at my face. Then she pressed play.

The clinic voice filled the room again, bright as polished tile.

“Hello, Ms. Ashby, this is Maren calling from Dr. Merrow’s office confirming your transfer appointment for tomorrow at 9:00 AM. We have the authorization from family counsel and will need you fasting for labs if possible. Please call us back before 5:00 to confirm transport p>

The voicemail ended. This time I wrote every word down-not because I had missed any, but because writing turned violation into evidence, and evidence had edges.

Dr. Merrow / Maren

tomorrow 9:00 AM

transfer appointment

fasting labs

transport

authorization from family counsel

no consent from me

I underlined the last line twice. My hand stayed steady until I reached transport- then the pen slipped, one ugly mark across the page. Isolde saw it and did not comment. That was friendship too.

“Send to Anika?” she asked.

“And Mara. And Dr. Price p>

“Already forwarding the audio p>

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< Chapter 25

“Not just audio. Screenshot the timestamp. Screenshot the unknown number. Export the voicemail if the phone lets you p>

“I know p>

“Write down that I ate at 1:30 p>

She looked up. “For fasting labs p>

“For fasting labs I never agreed to p>

Her mouth tightened. “Good p>

“And that I am not refusing care. I am refusing an appointment made by someone else p>

“Good again p>

The word should have helped. It did not. I wrote one more line under the others -No callback from patient. Counsel response only. – and boxed it. Not because boxes had legal force, but because my hand needed to draw a border somewhere.

I stood too fast and regretted it before my knees finished the decision. The room tilted. Isolde’s hand moved, stopped, and hovered near my elbow without touching.

“Sit p>

“I need the bag p>

“You need to sit for 10 seconds before the bag p>

“I can do both p>

“You can be infuriating in a chair p>

A

I sat – not because she had won, but because my daughter pressed hard against my pelvis, and my body had begun making its own legal arguments. Gravity was one. Breath was another. The little practice contraction from earlier had left behind a sore band across my lower belly, like a handprint from the inside.

I counted 10 seconds, then 20, then stood with one hand on the table and crossed the room to the dresser. Nina had found me a small black duffel from the building’s donation shelf-one broken zipper pull and a faded airline tag from a place I had never been. I set it on the bed.

“Hospital or escape?” Isolde asked.

“Both p>

That was the problem with emergency bags – everyone pretended they were about preparedness. Mine was about admitting I might have to leave one safety for another without warning, with a daughter inside me and a man trying to schedule my body like a meeting.

I opened the duffel. The first thing I put in was not clothing-it was the folder marked IDENTITY / PREGNANCY. Copy of my identification. Insurance card. Dr. Price’s note confirming independent prenatal care at 29 weeks. A printed ultrasound copy. The St. Orla restriction notice. The St. Orla supplemental note with maternal instability highlighted in yellow because if a word wanted to hurt me, it could do the courtesy of standing in good light. The private clinic intake summary. The voicemail transcript I had just written. My denial through counsel.

I put all of it in a zip pouch and pressed out the air. Then I added my medication list, prenatal vitamins, a spare phone charger, and a small notebook where I had started logging food, movement, calls, pain, and sleep. There was no romance in documenting crackers – there was safety in it.

“Clothes,” Isolde said.

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< Chapter 25

I looked at the folder. “I know p>

“Aveline p>

said I know p>

Clothes felt stupid. Documents could prove I existed; clothes could only keep me warm while someone challenged it. I folded 2 maternity leggings, 2 long shirts, underwear, socks, and the softest cardigan I owned that had not come from Dario’s apartment. The cardigan was brown, too large, and pilled at the cuffs – it looked like something a woman might wear when no one needed her to be elegant enough to lie beside.

I put in toiletries, hair ties, the cheap slippers Nina had left outside the door, cash in 3 envelopes, one granola bar. Isolde added 4 more.

“That bag is getting heavy,” I said.

“Then I will carry it p>

“No p>

“Then we will argue about physics after you eat dinner p>

I almost smiled – and the almost hurt.

The dresser’s bottom drawer stuck. I had to brace my foot against it and pull. Inside were the baby things Nina had quietly collected after hearing I had left my nursery behind – not much. Donated onesies washed thin, a knit cap too small for any human head I could imagine, 2 receiving blankets, a packet of newborn diapers, a tiny sweater the color of oatmeal folded on top.

I did not touch it at first. I looked at it – that was safer.

The sweater had wooden buttons shaped like small uneven moons. One sleeve had been mended near the wrist with thread a shade darker than the yarn. It was not expensive. It had no Armitage money on it, no foundation gift tag, no private-clinic welcome pack, no Celine- approved palette of cream and pale green. It was just small.

That was what broke me – not the voicemail, not the appointment, not the word transfer, which still sat in my stomach like a metal coin. The sweater. Because somewhere there was supposed to be a drawer for this – not a donated dresser in a safe room with a chain lock, not a duffel bag that had to decide whether my daughter was an emergency or a person. There was supposed to be the half-painted nursery, the ridiculous crib frame Dario assembled wrong twice because he refused to read instructions, and the yellow blanket I had held against my face in a shop while pretending hormones were not a public event. There was supposed to be one place where softness was not evidence against

I picked up the sweater. It fit across both palms. My breath went.

Isolde’s chair scraped, then stopped. She stayed where she was-good. If she touched me, I might have folded around the kindness and not come back quickly enough.

I pressed the sweater to the curve of my stomach. “I am sorry,” I whispered.

The baby did not answer. Of course she did not – she was 29 weeks old inside me and already being treated as a jurisdictional dispute. I bent over the sweater anyway. My ribs complained, my throat closed, and I let 1 sound out-only 1. Then I made myself breathe through the rest because tomorrow at 9:00 AM someone expected me not to eat and to accept transport arranged by people trying to take my name off my own child.

Softness could not cost her safety. Not today. I folded the sweater along it’s old creases and set it back in the drawer.

Isolde’s voice was careful. “You can take it p>

“No p>

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“It weighs nothing p>

“It weighs a nursery p>

Her eyes changed. I closed the drawer.

“If we have to move fast, I need proof, clothes, medication, charger, cash. If I add one baby thing, I will add 5, and then I will be standing in a doorway deciding between diapers and documents while Dario’s security is downstairs p>

“That is a grimly persuasive sentence p>

“I hate it p>

“I do too p>

My clean phone buzzed on the table. Isolde picked it up before I could.

“Anika,” she said. “She wants the voicemail preserved and says do not call Dr. Merrow back p>

“Obviously p>

“Also says the appointment may show attempt to manufacture noncompliance if you do not appear p>

I laughed once – it sounded terrible. “So if I go, they get me. If I do not, they get a line for court p>

“She says they do not get it cleanly if we answer through counsel before 5:00 p>

“Good p>

“Mara says same. Dr. Price can add a note that she has not ordered fasting labs and that you have a care plan p>

I put one hand on the duffel. “Then add the voicemail transcript to the hearing binder. Mark it urgent p>

“Doing it p>

While Isolde typed, I made the bag ugly and useful- copies, not originals, where possible; originals in the flat document case; phone charger coiled in a sock so it would not tangle; cash split; clean underwear in a freezer bag because the safe room had no real organization and disaster apparently liked compartments.

The baby rolled under my palm. “I am choosing paperwork over sweaters,” I told her softly.

Isolde’s typing slowed. I did not look at her.

“That is not because paperwork matters more.” The baby pressed once, solid and wordless. “It is because paperwork is how they are trying to steal the sweater too p>

My throat hurt again. I zipped the duffel – the broken pull caught halfway. I tugged once, twice, then made myself stop before frustration became force and force became another thing my body had to survive. Isolde stood and fixed it with a paper clip from her pocket.

“Office supply drawer,” I said.

“Survival suite p>

The clean phone buzzed again. This time her face changed before she spoke – not fear, focus.

“What p>

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She turned the screen toward me. The image was grainy, taken from a lobby camera feed I recognized before my mind wanted to ble marble, brass bowl on the entrance console, the private elevator hall outside the apartment. Dario’s old apartment. My old apartment, if Nes counted as leases. Grant Bell stood in the frame with another man in a dark coat, and a third man held the apartment door open with a gloved hand. They were entering the place where I had painted clouds with the father of my child.

Isolde’s voice was low. “Building contact sent it 30 seconds ago. Dario’s security just went in p>

The duffel sat between my feet. Small. Not small enough.

End of chapter

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Tai Jun

Tai Jun is a dreamer and storyteller who believes the sky is never the limit. He spends most of his time with his friend Lian, chasing new horizons and crafting tales that soar beyond boundaries.