Chapter 7 - The Unraveling
Ryan backed up a step, his eyes darting between my father and the visiting nurse.
"It was standard over-the-counter acetaminophen!" Ryan blurted out, his hands waving in the air.
"I swapped them into an empty prescription bottle so she would think she was receiving her narcotic! It was a placebo effect! I was protecting her from addiction!"
"You were practicing medicine without a license, Mr. Mercer," Nurse Hannah snapped, furiously typing notes into her encrypted state tablet.
"You withheld prescribed post-operative narcotics from a patient suffering from major surgical trauma, lied about the medication you were administering, and kept her in severe physical distress."
Dad stepped forward, pulling a small silver recorder from his jacket pocket.
"Show her the notebook, Ryan," Dad commanded.
Ryan froze.
"What notebook?"
"The one where you've been forging behavioral logs claiming my daughter is an irrational drug addict to manufacture grounds for an emergency custody filing," Dad said, his voice dropping into that chilling, lethal investigator's rumble.
Dad reached into his leather coat and pulled out the spiral notebook.
He had taken it off the dresser while Ryan was changing his shirt earlier that morning.
Dad dropped the open book onto the coffee table right next to the pile of oxycodone tablets.
Nurse Hannah picked up the notebook, her eyes scanning the fabricated entries: Patient exhibiting fixation on narcotics... emotional instability... risk for infant care.
Hannah looked up at Ryan, her mouth slightly open in disgust.
"You documented that you administered doses of oxycodone on Sunday at 1:08 PM and Monday at 8:45 PM."
"I was trying to build a record!" Ryan shouted, his voice cracking into high-pitched hysteria.
"She has an addictive personality! Her uncle had an alcohol problem! I was trying to protect our family before she ruined us!"
"My brother died of kidney failure ten years ago, you sick son of a bitch," Dad said, stepping directly into Ryan’s personal space until their chests were inches apart.
"You didn't do this to protect anyone. You did this because you wanted a legal paper trail to hold over my daughter's head so she would never leave you."
Ryan turned to me on the sofa, his eyes bulging with frantic, desperate pleading.
"Megan! Tell them! Tell them I was just taking care of you! I changed every diaper! I cleaned the house! I did everything for you and Iris!"
I looked down at the tiny baby sleeping peacefully against my chest, then looked up at the man who had watched me cry in agony for six days while smiling into my face.
"You let me suffer, Ryan," I said, my voice steady, clear, and completely devoid of fear.
"You watched me crawl on my hands and knees to the bathroom, and you wrote down that I was crazy."
Nurse Hannah pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed a three-digit extension.
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"This is Registered Nurse Hannah Cole, license number 44902," she stated clearly into the receiver.
"I am currently conducting a post-partum home visit at 412 Orchard Lane. I am reporting an active incident of domestic medical neglect, unauthorized tampering with Schedule II pharmaceuticals, and coercive psychological abuse. I require an immediate police escort and an emergency transport unit."
