Chapter 2 - The SignatureFranklin refused to answer questions about the discharge form.
The second Officer Ruiz asked where he got it, his attorney suddenly became the only person he wanted to speak to.
That was fine.
The paper could speak for itself.
Carla brought me back into bed.
A surgeon checked the incision again.
No internal damage they could see immediately.
The pulled IV had torn the skin on my arm, but that was minor compared with what could have happened.
My mother sat beside the window.
Still crying.
I did not reach for her.
Not yet.
Officer Ruiz returned after Franklin was removed from the floor.
“Ethan, do you recognize this signature?”
She placed a photocopy of the discharge request on the bedside table.
I looked.
The E was mine.
The long line through the t was similar.
The final n curved too perfectly.
“It looks like somebody copied it.”
“Do you remember signing any hospital papers before surgery?”
“A lot.”
“Were you conscious?”
“Barely.”
I had arrived with fever above 103.
Vomiting.
Abdominal pain so bad I could not stand straight.
The emergency surgeon told us afterward that waiting much longer could have caused septic shock.
Ruiz asked:
“Who completed your admission paperwork?”
“My mom.”
Dana looked up.
“Some of it.”
“And Franklin?”
She hesitated.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
Franklin had taken the clipboard from her after ten minutes.
“Dana, I need accuracy.”
“I know.”
She pressed a hand against her mouth.
“He said I was too upset and he would handle insurance.”
Ruiz wrote something.
Carla checked the chart.
“The discharge request isn’t in his medical record.”
“What?”
She refreshed.
“No original. No scanned copy.”
Ruiz looked at the paper again.
“So this never came through normal hospital processing.”
Carla shook her head.
“Not that I can see.”
Then she pointed at the signature line.
“This form isn’t even the current St. Vincent version.”
“How can you tell?”
“The footer.”
She showed us.
Revision date:
Two years earlier.
Current forms had a new patient rights section.
“So where would someone get an old one?”
“Could have been downloaded online.”
Ruiz photographed it.
Then she asked the question I had been avoiding.
“What happened before you came to the hospital?”
I looked at Dana.
She stared at her hands.
“My stomach hurt for two days.”
“Did you ask for medical care?”
“Yes.”
“Who refused?”
Dana began crying again.
I answered anyway.
“Franklin.”
My mother whispered:
“Ethan.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“He did.”
Ruiz waited.
I continued.
The first night, I told Franklin I thought something was seriously wrong.
He said I was trying to get out of Saturday shift.
The next morning I threw up in the warehouse bathroom.
He gave me antacids.
Told me to finish inventory.
By evening I could barely walk.
Dana wanted urgent care.
Franklin said we could not afford another “drama bill.”
At 2 a.m., I collapsed beside the kitchen table.
Dana drove me herself.
Franklin followed twenty minutes later.
Ruiz asked:
“Why would he try to discharge you before surgery?”
“I don’t know.”
Dana suddenly said:
“He was angry about the hospital social worker.”
I turned.
“What social worker?”
Her face changed.
“You don’t remember?”
“No.”
Before surgery, while I drifted in and out, someone had spoken to Dana about bruising on my ribs.
Old bruises.
Warehouse.
Franklin.
I remembered fragments.
A woman asking whether I felt safe at home.
Franklin entering.
His voice getting sharp.
Then nothing.
Carla checked.
There had been a social work consult order.
It was canceled forty minutes later.
“By who?”
She looked at screen.
“Patient request.”
I stared.
“I didn’t request that.”
Ruiz became very still.
The forged discharge form was not the only request somebody had made in my name.
Then Carla found another note.
Patient’s family states patient wishes to leave prior to procedure and return home for alternative observation.
Time:
5:43 a.m.
My surgery started at 8:41.
The surgeon had refused to release me because imaging showed rupture and infection.
Who made the statement?
Chart:
Stepfather.
Franklin Mercer.
Dana covered her mouth.
Ruiz asked:
“Did he try to take you out physically?”
Dana nodded.
“He said he was going to put Ethan in the car.”
“And you?”
“I told him no.”
Ruiz looked at her.
“Was that the first time you told him no?”
My mother started crying harder.
I knew the answer before she gave it.
“No.”
Then Ruiz asked something that made her stop.
“Dana, what exactly was Franklin afraid the hospital was going to discover?”
My mother looked at me.
And for the first time since the arrest, I saw fear that had nothing to do with Franklin hitting me.
May you like
“I don’t know.”
She said it too quickly.
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