Part Four: The Hospital
The doctor was a woman in her fifties named Dr. Adeola, who had the specific quality of pediatric emergency staff — a warm efficiency, an unhurried manner that was also somehow rapid, a face that kept itself neutral in a way that was professional rather than cold.
She examined Emma in a room with a blue curtain while Daniel sat outside in the corridor on a plastic chair that was slightly too small for him, his elbows on his knees, looking at the floor.
Dr. Adeola came out twenty minutes later. She sat in the chair next to him, which he noticed — she had chosen to sit rather than stand, which was a choice that meant something.
“She’s dehydrated,” she said. “Moderately to seriously. We’re going to get fluids into her and monitor her for a few hours. She also hasn’t eaten enough in at least two or three days — her blood sugar is low.” She paused. “She’s otherwise physically unharmed. No injuries beyond what you’d expect from being confined without adequate space or warmth.”
He nodded.
“She told me three or four days,” he said. “In the crate.”
“I believe that’s consistent with what I’m seeing.” She looked at him. “You arrived just in time. A few more hours, or if the night had been colder, we might be having a different conversation.”
He sat with that for a moment.
“I want to be clear,” Dr. Adeola said. “What has happened to your daughter constitutes child abuse. I am required to notify social services, which I am doing. The police will also be informed.” She paused. “Do you know where her mother is?”
“No. Not yet.”
“When you find out, that information will be important for the investigation.”
He nodded again.
“Can I see her?”
“In a few minutes. She’s being settled. She asked for you.”
He looked at the ceiling. The fluorescent light above him hummed with the specific frequency of hospital lighting everywhere, which he had always found oddly steady, something to anchor to.
“There’s something else,” Dr. Adeola said. “I don’t say this to distress you, but because it’s useful to know.” She folded her hands in her lap. “She was very calm during the examination. Cooperative. Too cooperative, in a way — she was managing her own reactions very carefully for a seven-year-old. Children who have experienced sustained stress over a period of time sometimes develop that. She’ll need support. Not just practical support, but someone to help her process what’s happened.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ll get her that.”
“There are good people who work with children in these situations. I can give you a list before you leave.”
“Thank you.”
She put a hand briefly on his arm — a small, professional gesture, the kind of contact that said I see this and it is not invisible without making more of the moment than it needed to be.
“She’s lucky you came home today,” she said.
He didn’t say anything to that. He wasn’t ready, yet, to think about the variables — what if he’d been delayed, what if the processing had taken another day, what if the drive had been longer. He couldn’t look at those variables yet. He put them in the category of things to not look at directly, because some things you couldn’t afford to look at directly when there was still work to be done.
He went in to see Emma.
