Chapter 2 - THE LABEL SHE FINALLY READ
Nothing came out.
Claire stopped the bottle before the first drop reached the food.
Sullivan jumped to his feet.
“What are you doing?”
Philippa shoved her plate away.
“Are you crazy?”
Claire looked at the bottle.
Then at them.
“No.”
Her voice was quiet.
“I think I finally stopped being crazy enough to trust you.”
Sullivan’s face changed.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Claire turned the bottle so the prescription label faced him.
It was not the mild post-surgical pain medication Philippa had claimed.
The medication was a sedating anti-anxiety drug prescribed months earlier to Philippa herself.
Claire had been given pills from that bottle twice.
Once after she cried uncontrollably on Aloan’s fourth night home.
Again two nights ago, when Philippa told her she was “too hysterical to safely feed the baby.”
Claire remembered sleeping nearly six hours after the first dose.
When she woke, Aloan had already been fed formula.
Sullivan had told her:
“You needed the rest.”
Claire stared at him now.
“Did you know?”
He looked at the label.
Then at his mother.
Too slowly.
That was an answer.
Philippa stood.
“I gave you something to calm down.”
“You gave me your prescription medication.”
“You were out of control.”
“I was crying.”
“You were unstable.”
Claire’s eyes hardened.
There it was.
Unstable.
A word that had begun appearing more and more often since Aloan was born.
Philippa used it.
Sullivan used it.
Even Sullivan’s sister had texted once:
Mom says you’re having a really hard time emotionally. Maybe let Sullivan make the big decisions for a while.
Claire had thought they were worried.
Now she looked at the bottle again.
“What big decisions?”
Sullivan stepped around the table.
“Claire, put that down.”
She backed away.
“Why?”
“You’re exhausted.”
“Answer me.”
Philippa snapped:
“This is ridiculous.”
Claire looked at her.
“Then explain why you gave me medication that wasn’t prescribed to me.”
Philippa said nothing.
Sullivan tried to take the bottle.
Claire pulled it away.
“Don’t.”
“Claire—”
“Don’t touch me.”
That stopped him.
For the first time in weeks, Claire saw uncertainty in his face.
Not concern.
Uncertainty.
As if she had stepped outside a role he expected her to keep playing.
She put the bottle into her pocket.
Then walked past both of them.
Philippa called after her:
“Where are you going?”
Claire did not turn around.
“To feed my daughter.”
Then, after one more step:
“And after that, I’m calling my doctor.”
Sullivan went pale.
May you like
Claire saw it in the reflection of the hallway mirror.
And that was when she knew the medicine was not the only thing they were afraid she would ask about.
