Chapter 4
The ICU smelled like plastic and clean laundry and that cold hand sanitizer they had by every doorway. I couldn't open my eyes all the way yet. Not really see. I could hear everything. The monitor beeped in a slow, steady rhythm that I realized was mine. Warm light came through my eyelids, beige walls somewhere beyond it. Daniel's hand was around mine. His thumb kept moving over the silver beads of my rosary bracelet. He hadn't let go since they brought me in.
He thought I was still under. He leaned close, his voice low and rough.
"You've been tired for a month," he whispered. "Every morning you said you couldn't get up. You said your heart felt slow. Like it was beating through mud."
I heard him breathe in. He paused a long time before the next part.
"I told you it was stress," he said. "I told you the doctor knew better."
That was true. Three weeks ago I'd sat on the edge of our bed with my hands shaking and told him the pills made everything feel flat and heavy. My legs felt like they weren't mine. I'd told Dr. Keller the same thing at the clinic off Route 9. He hadn't looked up from his laptop. He'd said anxiety does that, lots of women get health anxiety, and he increased the dose. Daniel had been in the chair next to me. He'd nodded. He'd said, "If he says it's safe, it's safe."
In the ICU room, Daniel's voice cracked.
"I didn't push. He said forty milligrams was normal and I just said okay. You asked me to call him when you couldn't stay awake through dinner and I didn't. I told you to push through it. I deferred to him. I didn't advocate for you."
The words landed exactly where his whisper had landed in the funeral hall. Perdóname por no haberte protegido. Forgive me for not protecting you. Now I understood what he meant. It wasn't about the funeral. It was about before. He'd let another man decide what was happening in my body while I sat there telling them both I didn't feel right.
I wanted to move my fingers. I wanted to tell him I heard him. All I could manage was a small catch in my breath and a twitch against his palm. He didn't notice. He kept talking, faster now, like he'd been holding it since the day they zipped me into that dark wood coffin.
"I brought you to every appointment and I never once said, check her again," he said. "I was supposed to protect you and I just agreed with the person in the white coat. That's not protection. That's laziness."
The door opened. The air shifted. I smelled Helen's perfume, that powdery rose scent she always wore to church. Her shoes made a soft sound on the linoleum and then stopped.
"Daniel," she said quietly. She'd been standing in the doorway. She'd heard him.
He didn't let go of my hand. "Mom. I didn't think you were back yet."
"I went to get coffee," she said. Her voice was tight. "I heard what you said."
There was a pause. The monitor beeped. I could feel Helen move closer to the foot of the bed. The vinyl chair creaked as she touched it but didn't sit.
"You think you should have interfered with the doctor?" she asked. "You think arguing would have helped? Doctors go to school for this. We pray, we trust. That's what we're supposed to do."
Daniel's grip got tighter around my hand. "She told us something was wrong, Mom. Twice. I told her to trust him anyway. That's not trust. That's me not wanting to make a phone call, not wanting to be the difficult husband."
"So now you want to blame Dr. Keller?" Helen said. Her hand went to her chest, I could hear the faint clink of her gold crosses. "He was trying to help her sleep. You can't know —"
"I know I didn't do my job," Daniel cut in, but he kept his voice low. He didn't want the nurses to hear. "If I'd said, hey, do the exam, do the blood work, she wouldn't have been in a coffin with the furnace on. She was awake, Mom. She was awake in there."
I heard Helen inhale sharply. Her breathing got quick. She'd been the one with her hand over her mouth in the crematorium hall when Daniel shouted for them to stop. No puede ser. It can't be. She'd said it like her whole world had tilted. Now she was hearing that it tilted because we'd all chosen to be polite instead of careful.
She stepped closer. Her hand brushed my ankle over the blanket. It was cold.
"Elena, honey," she whispered, thinking I couldn't hear. "Did we do this?"
I tried again to move. This time my eyelid fluttered. Just a little. Enough that the warm light flickered.
Daniel saw it. He sucked in air. "Elena?"
May you like
Helen froze. I felt the room go very still between them. Daniel leaned in, his beard brushing my temple the way it had in the funeral hall, but different now. Not goodbye. He was waiting for an answer I couldn't give yet. Helen stood at the foot of the bed with her arms crossed over her black dress, not touching anyone, caught between wanting to comfort him and wanting to defend the way she'd taught him to never question authority.
I couldn't forgive him. Not yet. But for the first time since the funeral hall, I understood exactly what he was asking forgiveness for. And I knew Helen had heard it too.
