Chapter 88 - The Records Request
The clinic's privacy officer sent the first response in a password-protected file. It included the date of every access to my chart during the week of the ultrasound, with names reduced to employee identifiers and a separate explanation of what the system could and could not prove.
Miriam reviewed it before I did.
“There's no evidence in this report that Adrian logged into your medical record,” she said.
“I didn't think he had a hospital password.”
“More importantly, the access by a registration supervisor has an ordinary explanation. The unexplained part is a printed scheduling sheet associated with a separate visitor request.”
I looked at the list of timestamps. The hospital had been the place I felt most exposed, the place where two men had appeared in a corridor while I was waiting to hear that my baby was healthy. For months, I'd treated the image of Marco dropping the leather file as proof of what I feared.
The report did not make the corridor feel less frightening. It made the question narrower.
“Can they tell us whose file he had?” I asked.
“They're checking. Their system records printing, not necessarily what somebody carried in a private folder.”
“Could it have been a file about the trust?”
“Yes. Or a briefing prepared elsewhere. We shouldn't decide before they finish.”
The answer irritated me. I wanted an explanation complete enough to match the feeling of violation. Miriam, who had spent months refusing to mistake fear for proof, gave me a task instead.
“Write down what you want fixed regardless of the source of that particular document.”
That evening I filled a page: no contact with medical staff through Moretti employees; no security team following my appointments; verified visitor lists; independent consent for any release of information; no surprise appearances.
I stopped there, then added: No expectation that I thank him for obeying these rules.
When I forwarded the page to Miriam, she wrote back: Good. Concrete. Enforceable where appropriate.
Adrian sent a message at 8:40 asking whether my appointment had gone well. I had not had an appointment that day. My skin tightened anyway.
“How did you know I was dealing with the clinic?” I typed.
He replied almost immediately: I didn't. I was asking about the one next week. I shouldn't have asked through an open-ended message.
I stared at the screen. It was possible to be afraid of someone because of what they had done and still recognize when a single new question had an innocent explanation.
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I told him I would share medical updates at the agreed times. He accepted that.
Then I put down the phone and finished a quiet dinner, letting a question remain unanswered until the people with access to the records could answer it properly.
