Chapter 2
The doors didn't hesitate. The sensor above the glass blinked red and the two panels slid apart and the warm hospital air hit my face before we were even through.
He didn't put me down.
From behind, I could feel his arms locked under my knees and around my back, my beige trench coat bunched between us, my cream pants damp where they'd pressed against his dark coat. My heels knocked lightly against his leg with each step. The wet pavement we'd left on stopped at the rubber mat and then there was only white tile, white walls, and that flat fluorescent light that made everything look too sharp.
"Hold on to me," he said again, quieter this time, not like the recording. Like he was reminding himself.
A woman in navy scrubs was already coming toward us from the desk. She didn't ask what happened. She just put a hand on the rail of a gurney and said, "Here. Set her down right here."
He didn't. For a half second he held me tighter, his stubble close to my cheek, his breathing hard. Then he lowered me onto the thin mattress. My coat fell open. The fluorescent tubes hummed above us.
The nurse pulled the curtain half-closed and pressed a button and the gurney cranked up. "I'm Jen," she said. She had a clipboard and a blood pressure cuff already in her hands. "What brings you in tonight?"
I tried to sit up and couldn't. My head swam from the light. "Bleeding," I said. "Pain. It started this afternoon."
Jen wrapped the cuff around my arm. It squeezed. She glanced at the monitor, then at my husband. "Are you family?"
"Husband," he said. He stood at the head of the gurney, his hand resting on the rail near my shoulder, not touching me yet. His dark coat was wet at the shoulders.
Jen looked back at me. "Any medical history I should know? Pregnancies, surgeries, medications?"
"None," I said. Then I had to correct it. "No surgeries. No medications today. I—"
"She had a miscarriage two years ago," he cut in. "And she's had irregular cycles since January."
I turned my head to look at him. He was watching Jen, not me.
Jen's pen paused. "Is that right, Paula?"
It was my name on the intake form she was holding. I hadn't told her my name yet, which meant he'd given it at the front desk while I was still in his arms.
"Yes," I said. "That happened. But that's not—"
"And no allergies," he added.
"Let her answer," Jen said, not unkindly, and wrapped the pulse oximeter around my finger. The red light glowed. My heart was at 102. I could see it on the screen.
Jen asked me if I was still bleeding now, how much, when my last period was, if I felt dizzy or nauseous. I answered every question and felt each answer get smaller. He kept his hand on the rail. Every time I hesitated, his fingers tightened on the metal.
When Jen pulled over a tray and snapped on gloves, she looked at him directly. "I need to do a quick exam and get a urine sample. Do you want to step out to the waiting area?"
"No," he said. Then, quickly, "Unless she wants me to."
Jen looked at me. He looked at me too.
I should have said yes. I wanted to. But the bright hallway was full of people moving past the curtain gap and my coat was still tangled around me and the blood pressure cuff was still hissing.
He leaned in a little, his voice dropped. He didn't do the concerned expression from the street anymore. He just looked tired.
"Can I touch you?" he asked.
It was the same line from outside, word for word, but his tone was different now. He wasn't asking to carry me. He was asking to stay. His hand hovered over my forearm, not landing, asking permission to bridge that last inch while Jen waited with her gloved hands folded.
I stared at his hand. The veins, the wedding band he still wore. Two hours ago we were supposed to be in a conference room downtown signing papers that said we wouldn't touch each other again.
My breath caught. I didn't answer right away. The monitor beeped, loud in the quiet. Jen didn't rush me.
"Just for the exam," I said finally. "You can hold my hand if I need it. That's it."
His jaw flexed, but he nodded. His fingers brushed my wrist and then settled, warm and steady, as Jen helped me shift my weight and eased the gurney flat.
Ten minutes later I was lying back, a thin blanket over my lap, an IV port taped to the back of my hand but not yet hooked up. Jen had hung a clipboard on the end of the bed. I could see the top sheet from where I lay.
It was the intake form. Under emergency contact he'd written his name and his cell, the same number I'd called that morning to confirm the lawyer. Under reason for visit someone had written "bleeding/pain-F 30s" in quick handwriting. And at the very top, in his handwriting, crossed out with one hard line: 3:30 PM - Lawyers - Downtown.
He sat in the plastic chair beside the gurney, still in his dark coat, his hands clasped between his knees, listed as my emergency contact like we were any other husband and wife brought in on a wet night. The automatic doors hissed softly every time they opened down the hall, letting in another gust of street air.
May you like
He didn't look at the form. He looked at me.
"We're not going anywhere until they figure this out," he said.
