Paige Holloway Wants a Quote
Chapter 12 - Paige Holloway Wants a Quote
Paige Holloway had once held Mara’s hair back behind a sorority house while Mara cried over a boy named Spencer who wrote poetry and borrowed money.
They had eaten cold pizza on dorm room floors, shared mascara, and promised to become women who told the truth for a living. Paige became a reporter. Mara became a counselor.
Then life, marriage, ambition, and unanswered texts turned friendship into old photographs.
Now Paige had written a story that made Nolan look like a wounded prince locked away from his newborn.
Mara read the article twice.
It never said she was abused. It never said she was lying. That would have been easier to hate.
It said sources close to the family described a tense delivery complicated by longstanding conflict between Mara’s husband and father. It said Graham Ellison had a reputation for aggressive business tactics. It said Nolan had declined to comment on “private family pain” while asking for prayers.
Private family pain.
Mara laughed until her incision of exhaustion made her wince.
“He hit the rail beside me, and now he’s asking for prayers?”
Graham’s phone rang continuously. Board members. Public relations people. Men who wanted to know whether this affected shipping contracts, as if domestic terror in a delivery room might delay lettuce.
Thomas Vale read the article and said a word June Baptiste pretended not to hear.
“We respond carefully,” Thomas said.
“I want to call Paige,” Mara said.
“No,” Graham said immediately.
Mara looked at him.
He stopped himself.
The old command hung in the air, unwelcome.
Graham took a breath. “I’m sorry. I mean, I’m afraid that speaking while exhausted could be used against you. But it’s your choice.”
Mara’s anger softened by half an inch.
“My choice is to call her with Thomas present.”
Thomas nodded. “That I can support.”
Paige answered on the fourth ring.
“Mara?”
Her voice cracked on the name, which made Mara angrier. Paige had known enough to feel guilty and not enough to stop.
“Why didn’t you call me?” Mara asked.
Silence.
“I was told you were medically fragile.”
“By whom?”
Another silence.
Mara closed her eyes.
“Nolan.”
“He said direct contact could harm your recovery.”
“And you believed him?”
“I believed I was reporting carefully on a developing situation.”
“You reported his bruised jaw and my father’s reputation. Did you ask why a woman in labor revoked her husband’s access?”
Paige inhaled sharply.
“Mara, off the record, are you safe?”
The question came too late.
But it came.
Mara looked at Iris sleeping against her chest.
“No,” she said. “But I’m safer than I was.”
Paige’s voice changed. The reporter receded; the friend stepped closer.
“What happened?”
Thomas held up a finger.
Mara understood.
“On the record?” she asked.
Paige whispered, “If you’re ready.”
Mara was not ready.
Readiness, she suspected, was another luxury women were told to wait for until the moment had passed.
“My husband struck medical equipment inches from my body while I was in active labor,” Mara said. “I feared he would hurt me. I requested he be removed. My father arrived after the threat occurred. The hospital documented my condition and my request. A judge has issued temporary protections. That is my statement for now.”
Paige did not speak.
Mara added, “And Paige?”
“Yes?”
“Do not call this private family pain again. That phrase is where women disappear.”
The corrected article went live two hours later.
It did not fix everything. Nothing online ever did. But the headline changed.
COURT RESTRICTS NEW FATHER FROM HOSPITAL AFTER DELIVERY ROOM THREAT ALLEGATION
Nolan’s victim photograph remained, but now it had context.
By sunset, women began commenting.
My ex broke a wall beside my head and said he never touched me.
He punched the car window while I was pregnant. Everyone said stress.
Believe her.
Mara read until her vision blurred.
Then one comment stopped her.
Beatrice L.: The wall remembers even when people don’t.
Mara showed Graham.
He smiled sadly.
“That sounds like her.”
The public story shifted, but the private danger sharpened.
At 9:30 p.m., Mara received an email from an unknown address.
There was no subject.
Only an attachment.
Thomas told her not to open it until he could trace it. Graham said the same. June said fear often arrived pretending to be information.
Mara waited until Thomas opened it on a secure laptop.
The attachment was a photo.
The nursery at Mara and Nolan’s house.
The crib was gone.
The shelves were empty.
On the wall where Mara had hung three framed prints of purple irises, someone had taped a piece of paper.
One sentence in black marker.
COME HOME BEFORE THIS GETS UGLIER.
Mara stared at the screen.
May you like
Nolan’s mistake had been paper.
His next mistake was thinking the word home still belonged to him.
