Chapter 12 - The Hallway Past the Nurses Station
The waiting room clock said 3:14 and didn't move right. I watched the second hand hitch and then go on, and I listened to the ice maker hum behind the vending machines. Daniel sat two chairs down from me with his jacket folded over his knees. His shirt sleeves were rolled once at the cuff. He hadn't looked at my dress in an hour.
A nurse came out with a clipboard and said Emily was still in surgery and the doctor would update when he could. Nobody cried. The man across from us kept flipping his truck keys over and over. I felt the lace at my throat itch and I didn't scratch it.
I couldn't sit there with him pretending we were just two worried people. I stood up and my knees cracked. My gown caught on the arm of the chair and I had to tug it free.
"Come here," I said.
He looked up. I didn't wait. I walked past the restrooms toward the short hallway where the lights were lower and there were no chairs. It smelled like bleach and coffee. A gurney with folded sheets was parked against the wall. He followed me, his shoes quiet on the tile.
When we got past the nurses station I stopped. I could still hear the waiting room TV, some weather map with the sound off. I didn't want anyone hearing us.
I held my veil in my hand. I'd taken it off in the car and I hadn't put it back on. Without it my hair felt cold where the pins pulled. I looked at him and I made myself breathe before I talked.
"You packed that suitcase before the ceremony, didn't you?"
He didn't answer right away. He glanced down the hallway toward the exit sign, then back at me. He rubbed the back of his neck.
"Yes," he said.
One word. It landed harder than anything else that night.
I waited. I wanted him to fill it. He shifted the jacket in his hands.
"I packed it yesterday morning," he said. "I put it by the door in the suite before we left for the church. I told myself if she got through the night okay, I'd leave it there and we'd go on the honeymoon. If she got worse, I was going to leave after the reception."
I stared at the folded jacket. I could see the edge of an envelope sticking out of the inside pocket, the one I'd found earlier. I didn't ask about that again. I just stayed on the suitcase.
"You were going to leave on our wedding night either way," I said. I hadn't meant to add that. It came out flat.
He shook his head quickly. "No. I was going to stay if I could. I didn't know how bad it was. Her mom kept saying she was stable."
I lifted my left hand. I didn't plan it. I just lifted it between us so he could see it. The skin where the ring had been was pale and a little dented. In the hallway light the tan line looked sharper than it had in the suite.
He looked at it and stopped talking. His mouth closed. He swallowed.
"I know," he said quietly.
I let my hand stay there a second longer. I didn't wave it or point it at him. I let the absence do what I couldn't say without raising my voice. Then I dropped my arm and the lace sleeve fell back over my wrist.
Down the hall a monitor beeped and someone laughed once, short, by the elevators. Daniel leaned his shoulder against the wall. The plaster was scuffed where carts had hit it.
"I didn't want you to find it like that," he said. "I should've told you before the ceremony."
I nodded because there wasn't anything else to do with that sentence. My feet hurt in my shoes and my dress felt too heavy and too warm for a hospital. I thought about the dark wood in the suite and the ring sitting there alone while we stood here.
"We can't leave," I said. "Not until the doctor comes."
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"No," he said. "I know."
We stood there side by side without touching, listening for footsteps that weren't coming. I folded my veil over my arm and smoothed it twice. He stayed against the wall, watching the hallway toward surgery, and I watched the empty space where my ring should have been catching light.
