In Case of Emergency

Fran was 45, a single mom of 3 and exhausted. It seemed like every time she would try to find a way to get out of some shit, well ya know the saying, “if it ain’t one thing it’s another.” She was working double overtime at the hospital, braiding hair out her kitchen, delivery driving and selling feet pics online. To anybody else that would seem like a hustlers mentality, but in all actuality, this was Fran pushing herself way past the limits of being a hustler, she felt like a slave to her own circumstances. Tommy was a great husband, at first. He was always working and helping with the kids, and then one day he just…didn’t. He didn’t go to work, he didn’t help with the kids, he just left. Now granted everything wasn’t all sunshine and roses, but he’ll whose relationship is? And it wasn’t her fault. That last baby, Fran told Tommy, I see things getting a little more difficult coming soon, I can’t be on my feet all the time like I was with last pregnancy, I have to take a maternity leave. He acted like he was ok with that, but his actions proved otherwise. Legally they are still married, but he’s been gone for 3 years, Fran started out being worried and concerned and heartbroken. She posted missing signs everywhere in the neighborhood. She rallied up friends and family member and neighbors and started a search party after the police wouldnt help. Saying that “Tommy is a grown man, maybe he just needed sometime alone..”. They never found not one clue to lead to his whereabouts , alive or dead. Now she was sitting at the kitchen table, looking over bills, thinking to herself, “I hope the motherfucker is dead..at least we’d get some insurance money.” She chuckled to herself a little bit, but then, that thought really started to run around in her head. “If he is dead, wouldn’t you have been notified by now? That motherfucker ain’t dead, he’s laid up with some hooker with no kids…but he loves the kids. Wouldn’t he come back for the kids? Why would he just leave and not even say anything? We could’ve talked about it, we could’ve worked it out…unless..” Her swirled with thoughts, good and bad. She sat there staring off into space..Fran’s chest tightened. Her eyes drifted to the junk drawer—past the rubber bands, the takeout menus, the old hospital badge she hadn’t worn since the night everything went sideways. The night Tommy showed up at her job unannounced. The night security escorted someone out in handcuffs, and she signed paperwork she never read because she was eight months pregnant, swollen, exhausted, and just wanted to go home.

Her phone buzzed on the table.

Unknown Number.

She ignored it at first—bill collector, scam, whatever—but it buzzed again. And again. On the third time, she answered.

“Fran,” a man’s voice said, low and careful. “I’m calling about Thomas Carter. Your husband.”

Her throat went dry.

Suddenly, she started to remeber…

She remembered that day now. The fluorescent lights. The smell of antiseptic and burnt coffee. Tommy sitting across from her in the hospital conference room, jaw tight, leg bouncing. He hadn’t come to argue. He’d come to sign something. Said his back had gone out at work, said HR needed paperwork updated in case surgery went wrong. Routine. Just in case.

She’d signed without reading. Of course she did. She trusted him. She was pregnant. She was tired. And she was used to being the one who handled things.Ms. Carter,” the voice said gently, “your husband was admitted three years ago under a psychiatric hold after an incident at your workplace. Severe dissociation. Paranoid ideation. He claimed his family was in danger.”

Fran swallowed.

“That file authorized you as the sole decision-maker for his care,” the man continued. “Two days later, long-term placement was approved. No visitation. No contact. Identity sealed.”

Her hand trembled.

“I didn’t—” she whispered, then stopped.

Because she did remember the second form now. The one they told her was temporary. The one they said was to protect the kids. The one she signed while crying in the bathroom, pen slipping in her sweaty palm.

She had told herself she didn’t have a choice.

The man hesitated. “What concerns us, Ms. Carter, is that yesterday…Thomas attempted to revoke that authorization.”

There was a flash of light right in Fran’s eyes..but only she could see it. “Oh my I’m so sorry you must have the wrong number, there’s no Mrs. Carter here.” She hung up, walked over to the boiling pot on the stove and stirred the soup. “Dinner will be ready in a minute kids!” She smiled and walked into her bedroom. She sat down at her vanity and brushed her hair. Not a care in the world, because now she wasn’t Fran Carter, she was Elizabeth Daring. And Elizabeth Daring was taking care of her sisters kids, whom died during childbirth.