Chapter 4
I didn't see him arrive. I heard the change in the hallway first.
The ICU was supposed to be quiet after midnight. The machines had settled into a rhythm. The nurse had dimmed the lights over my bed and pulled the curtain halfway so I could see the nurses' station without seeing the whole hall. I was still in the gown they'd given me after the ER, my dress bagged and tagged somewhere I couldn't see. My throat was raw from the oxygen and my neck ached where they'd examined the mark. I kept my hand near it without touching it.
Then the double doors buzzed. Not the soft chime for staff. The louder one for security.
I heard a man's voice, low and even, the one I'd heard in my sleep for two years. My husband. He wasn't supposed to be there. They'd promised they wouldn't call him.
"I'm looking for my wife," he said. "They told me she was brought here. There was an incident at the church."
His voice cracked perfectly on the last word.
A deputy answered him. I recognized Deputy Reyes from the stiff way she said her name when she came to my bedside an hour before. She hadn't told me her first name. She'd just said she was with the county and that no one from my family would be brought to my room without my permission.
"Sir, I need you to step into the family room with me," she said. "I need to get some information from you before we go any further."
"I want to see her," he said. "Is she — is she still here? They wouldn't tell me anything on the phone. Please, I just got to the altar and she just — she collapsed. I called 911 myself. I did chest compressions until they got there."
I stared at the curtain. My fingers curled into the sheet. He'd never done chest compressions. He'd leaned over me in the dressing suite and before I could finish my lipstick he'd pressed something cold against the side of my neck.
The security officer — a big man in a navy uniform with a hospital badge — stepped into view and gestured down the hall, away from my room. "Family room's this way, sir. Hospital policy. We need to keep this hallway clear."
My husband hesitated. I could see his shadow on the glass. Dark suit, white shirt. The suit he'd picked out for the photos. He'd wanted charcoal. I'd talked him into navy.
"She was fine this morning," he said, louder now, for anyone listening. "We were about to say our vows. She was standing right there at the altar. She just dropped. I thought it was her nerves."
Reyes didn't argue. "Let's get you sat down and I'll take your statement properly. That helps us help her."
They guided him past the nurses' station. I heard the family room door open and close. It had a frosted window. I could see the shapes move inside but not the faces. The red exit sign buzzed faintly above it.
A few minutes later Reyes came back to my bedside alone. She pulled the curtain closed behind her and spoke quietly.
"He's in the family room with security," she said. "He came from the church. Says you collapsed before the vows and he called 911 from the altar. Says he tried CPR."
She watched my face when she said it. I didn't answer right away. I was breathing through my nose so I wouldn't cry.
"That's not what happened," I whispered.
"I know," she said. "I need you to tell me where it did happen."
"In the dressing suite," I said. My voice was hoarse. "Before anyone walked in. He came in and said he needed to talk to me alone. He had something in his hand. I felt it on my neck. Then everything went dim."
Reyes nodded once and wrote it down word for word. She didn't correct me or fill in the blanks.
"He asked to see the body," she said after a second. "That's his wording. He keeps asking for the next steps for release."
The word body hit me hard. I felt my stomach turn.
"He thinks I'm dead," I said.
"Security is keeping him in the family room on a police hold," she said. "We haven't told him you're alive. We're not going to until we have to. Hospital security won't let him past that door and he doesn't have access to your chart. Right now, as far as he knows, you're still in the morgue."
From the hallway I heard his voice rise again through the closed door. Muffled but still performing.
"I just need to see my wife," he said. "Someone please tell me where she is."
The security officer answered, calm and flat. "Sir, I need you to stay seated. The deputy will be back with you. No one goes to patient areas without an escort."
May you like
Reyes squeezed the rail of my bed lightly. "We're going to record his timeline exactly as he gives it. That's evidence now. You don't have to see him. You don't have to decide anything tonight except to rest. Do you understand?"
I nodded. The machines beeped. Outside my room, the frosted glass stayed lit, holding him in place, away from me, while his lie sat on record.
