The next two days passed slowly.
I tried to keep myself occupied, but my attention kept returning to the laboratory.
Whenever the phone rang, I stopped what I was doing.
If the call was for someone else or an ordinary matter, I felt a brief wave of disappointment before reminding myself that I did not actually want bad news.
I wanted the truth.
Those were not necessarily the same thing.
Daniel noticed that I seemed distracted.
One morning, he asked whether something was bothering me.
I said I had not been sleeping well.
He looked concerned and suggested that I take it easy for a few days.
I thanked him.
The words came out automatically.
I was beginning to dislike how easily I thanked him for things that left my questions unanswered.
That evening, he prepared my drink again.
I watched him bring it from the kitchen.
He placed it beside me, then sat down and asked about a book I had been reading.
I answered him.
He listened.
For several minutes, we spoke about ordinary things.
I found myself wondering how many conversations I would remember differently if I learned that he had deliberately been making me unwell.
I pushed the thought away.
I had no results yet.
I had no right to turn a possibility into a fact simply because I was frightened.
Still, I could not forget the dark bottle disappearing into his pocket.
The next morning, Daniel left for work as usual.
I cleaned the kitchen, made the bed, and tried to read for a while.
The house was so quiet that I could hear the clock from the sitting room.
I had always liked quiet.
Now it felt as though the whole place was waiting with me.
Two days after my visit to the laboratory, my phone rang.
I was sitting near the window when I heard it.
I reached for the phone so quickly that I nearly knocked it off the table.
The caller introduced herself as a member of the laboratory staff.
She asked whether I was Mrs. Bennett.
I said yes.
Then she told me that Dr. Reeves wanted to speak with me in person as soon as possible.
I asked whether the analysis was complete.
She said the doctor would explain the findings himself.
Her voice was professional, but there was something careful about the way she spoke.
I gripped the phone more tightly.
"Is there a problem?"
"He would prefer to discuss the report with you directly, Mrs. Bennett."
She gave me the address and arranged a time for me to come in.
When the call ended, I sat without moving.
I had expected to feel relieved that the laboratory had an answer.
Instead, I felt the kind of fear that arrives before a door opens.
I dressed carefully and checked my bag twice before leaving.
I did not tell Daniel where I was going.
I could not bring myself to explain it to him, not until I knew what the doctor had found.
The laboratory looked much the same as it had on my first visit.
The reception area was quiet.
A staff member greeted me and asked me to wait.
I sat in a chair near the wall and tried to keep my hands still in my lap.
I watched people move through the corridor.
A door opened and closed.
Someone spoke briefly at the desk.
Ordinary sounds.
I focused on them because I did not want to keep imagining what might be waiting in the doctor's office.
After a short time, a staff member came to collect me.
She led me down the corridor to Dr. Reeves's room.
He was standing beside his desk when I entered.
A report lay open in front of him.
He looked up at me, then down at the papers.
Something in his expression made me stop just inside the doorway.
He did not greet me with the easy smile I had expected from a doctor meeting a patient.
He looked concerned.
Not impatient.
Not confused.
Concerned.
"Mrs. Bennett, please sit down."
I took the chair opposite his desk.
He gathered several pages and placed them in a neat stack.
Then he looked toward the door.
For a moment, he seemed to be deciding what to say first.
He walked over and closed it.
The click sounded louder than it should have.
He returned to his desk and sat down.
"Before we discuss the report, I need to ask you something."
I nodded.
"Does your husband know you came here?"
The question took me by surprise.
I had expected him to ask about the sample, or about my symptoms, or whether I knew what Daniel had added.
I had not expected him to begin with Daniel himself.
"No," I said.
My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to.
Dr. Reeves studied me for a moment.
"Are you certain he doesn't know about the test?"
"Yes. I haven't told him."
He nodded slowly.
Then he turned his attention to the report.
I leaned forward.
"Doctor, please. I need to understand what's happening. I've been feeling exhausted, and I saw my husband putting something into my drink. He told me it was flavoring, but he wouldn't show me the bottle."
I stopped.
The words had come out faster than I intended.
Dr. Reeves listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he rested his hands on the desk.
"I understand why you came to us."
I waited.
He turned his computer screen toward me.
At first, I did not understand what I was looking at.
There was my name.
Margaret Bennett.
My date of birth.
Several other details that identified me.
I leaned closer to the screen.
"Why is my information on there?"
Dr. Reeves did not answer immediately.
He moved the cursor and opened another section of the record.
A heading appeared beneath my personal details.
Two words stood out.
RESEARCH PARTICIPANT.
I read them once.
Then again.
I shook my head.
"That can't be right."
Dr. Reeves watched me carefully.
"I've never signed up for research," I said. "I've never agreed to take part in anything like that."
He nodded, but he did not dismiss the entry as a mistake.
Instead, he turned back toward the computer and opened another file.
My hands had begun to feel cold.
I looked from the screen to his face.
"Why does your system say that about me?"
"That's what we need to establish, Mrs. Bennett."
I swallowed.
"I don't understand."
"I know."
He said it quietly, without trying to reassure me before he had explained anything.
For some reason, that made me more frightened.
He moved a document aside and opened a second record.
Then he paused.
"I want you to look at something before I explain what these entries mean."
I leaned forward.
He clicked on an image file.
A photograph appeared on the screen.
I could not see every detail from where I was sitting, so I moved my chair closer.
At first, I thought it might be an ordinary identification photograph connected to the record.
Then I noticed the details around it.
The image was part of a file that had been linked to my name.
I looked at Dr. Reeves.
He had gone very still.
"Have you seen this before?" he asked.
"No."
The answer came out immediately.
I looked back at the photograph.
I had come to the laboratory because my husband had hidden a bottle from me.
I had expected the doctor to tell me whether the drink contained something that might explain my tiredness.
I had not expected to find myself listed in a research record I had never agreed to join.
And I had not expected Daniel's name, or the question of why he had married me, to become part of the same mystery.
I sat there staring at the screen, trying to understand how my ordinary life had led me into that office.
The cream-colored cup came back to me.
Its chipped handle.
The warm drink.
Daniel's patient smile as he waited for me to finish.
I had once taken those things as proof that I was loved.
Now I could not look at them in my memory without wondering what they had meant to him.
Dr. Reeves kept his eyes on me.
I wanted him to tell me what the photograph meant.
I wanted him to tell me that there was a mistake in the record and that I could go home and speak to my husband without fear.
But the doctor's expression gave me no reason to expect that answer.
He turned the screen slightly so I could see the image more clearly.
I stared at it, feeling the last of my certainty begin to loosen.
Whatever had brought my name into that file, it had happened without my knowledge.
And whatever Daniel had been doing each night, I could no longer convince myself that the drink was the whole story.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: The Photograph on Dr. Reeves’s Screen Showed Me That Someone Had Connected My Name to Something I Never Agreed To
I Thought I Had Finally Found Love Again, Until My Husband Began Treating One Ordinary Cup Like Something I Couldn’t Refuse
Part 4 of 12
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