Chapter 9 - The Night Shift Stared at My Veil
The taxi slowed under the white canopy and I saw COUNTY HOSPITAL in block letters lit too bright for midnight. The driver put the car in park but didn't turn around right away. My veil had slipped forward over my shoulder and the lace caught on the seatbelt buckle. I had to pull it free with both hands.
"Here is fine," I said. "How much?"
He told me and I counted out bills from the small clutch I'd grabbed off the suite dresser. My fingers felt clumsy without the ring. I'd gotten used to its weight in a few months and now the skin there felt too light, too cold. I left him a tip I couldn't really afford and he got out to open my door because the dress made it hard to move fast.
Cold air hit my sleeves. The lace didn't keep any heat in. Across the parking lot an ambulance sat empty with its back doors open, lights off. The blacktop was wet in patches and my low heels clicked. I lifted the front of my gown a few inches so the hem wouldn't drag.
The sliding ER doors opened before I reached them. Warm air smelled like cleaner and coffee.
Inside, everything slowed. A man with a bandaged hand stopped mid-sentence. A teenage boy in a hoodie stared openly. A woman holding a sleeping toddler looked from my dress to my face and then quickly away. My breathing sounded loud inside my own chest. I tried to keep my eyes forward, on the long desk with the glass partition.
There was a sign that said CHECK IN HERE. A security guard near the metal detector nodded at me but didn't ask me to go through it. Maybe he thought I was lost.
At the desk a nurse in navy scrubs was typing with one hand and holding a phone to her ear with the other. Her badge said R. Morales, RN. She finished the call and looked up. Her expression didn't change much, but her eyes went down to the lace at my wrists.
"Hi," I said. My voice came out thin. I cleared my throat. "I need a visitor pass. I'm looking for someone who was brought in tonight."
She pulled a clipboard toward her. "Name?"
"Emily." I paused. "I don't have a last name."
The typing stopped. She looked at me again, longer this time. Behind her a monitor beeped in a steady rhythm and someone laughed short down a hallway I couldn't see.
"We have a few Emilys in the system," she said. "Do you know date of birth? Or who brought her in?"
I shook my head. "My husband — Daniel. He would have come with her. Tall, early thirties, short dark hair. Black suit." I heard how that sounded. "Tonight. Just within the last hour or so."
Nurse Morales hesitated. Her hand rested on the mouse but she didn't click. "Ma'am, I can't give out room numbers without a last name. Privacy rules. Especially tonight, the ER is —" She glanced at the waiting chairs behind me. "Is he family to the patient?"
I didn't know how to answer that. My mouth opened and closed. The veil itched at the back of my neck where sweat had dried.
"Please," I said. I kept it to one word because anything more would have cracked. "He left our — he left and came here. I just need to know if he's here."
She studied my dress, my pulled-back hair coming loose, my bare ring finger. Something in her face softened, but she still didn't reach for the passes hanging on a hook by her elbow.
"I can check with the charge nurse if you want to have a seat," she said quietly. "What's your name?"
I told her. She wrote it down and tore off a temporary sticker pass anyway and slid it across the counter. "Put this on where I can see it. Waiting area is through those double doors to the left. Hallway beds are full, so stay near the wall."
"Thank you," I said and pressed the sticker to the lace over my chest. It wouldn't stick, so I held it against my palm.
I pushed through the double doors. The hallway was longer than I expected, lit with those flat white panels that made everyone's skin look gray. Curtains on rails, rolling carts, a janitor pushing a yellow bucket. The smell was stronger here, alcohol and plastic sheets. My gown brushed a cart and a nurse pulled it aside quickly with an apology she didn't finish.
I stayed near the wall like I'd been told. Room numbers passed on small plates. 12, 14, 16. A monitor alarmed and then went silent. Someone behind a curtain was breathing hard through an oxygen mask.
At the far end, past the nurses' station, the hallway turned toward the elevators. A man stood there with his back to me, one hand braced high against the doorframe. Black suit jacket. White collar. Same cut across the shoulders I had watched walk away from our suite into the dark.
May you like
Daniel.
He wasn't moving. He was just staring down that side corridor like he couldn't make himself walk any farther. I stopped mid-step. My hand tightened around the visitor pass until the paper bent. A cart rolled between us and for a second I lost him behind a nurse pushing blankets, and then he was there again, still from behind, still not turning.
