Chapter 4
The blood pressure cuff squeezed and released on a timer. I watched the numbers flash and disappear. The nurse had left the curtain half open after she took the vials, and I could see the hallway clock tick past nine. My feet were cold under the thin blanket. He sat in the plastic chair beside the bed with his dark coat folded over his knees, like he didn't know what to do with his hands now that he wasn't carrying me.
"We were supposed to go to the lawyers." The words had come out of me on the wet pavement without thinking. Sitting there with the IV tap in my arm, I finally heard what I'd meant.
It wasn't about that afternoon. It was about the night I found the emails.
It had been a Thursday three weeks earlier. He'd left his laptop open on the kitchen island while he took the trash out. I wasn't looking for anything. The screen lit up with a notification preview: dinner confirmation, same restaurant we'd gone to for our anniversary, but with someone else's name. I clicked. There were months of them. Lunches, a hotel receipt, messages where he called our counseling "performance art" and said I was "already checked out so it doesn't count." I sat at that island until the ice melted in my glass and the back door opened, and he just said, "You weren't supposed to see that."
That was why I'd called the lawyer the next morning. That was the appointment he'd been driving me to when the cramping started in the parking lot and I doubled over against the dark vehicle and couldn't stand straight.
His phone buzzed against his coat. He glanced at the screen and stood.
"I need to take this," he said.
He stepped just outside the curtain, into the hallway. He didn't go far. I could hear him through the gap.
"Hey, Mom," he said, his voice low and careful. "We're at the hospital. No, she's okay. Just some stomach thing. They want to keep her overnight for tests."
A pause. He turned his shoulder a little more away from me.
"No, she wasn't feeling well, so we didn't make it to the appointment. Yeah, we rescheduled. We're good, we're figuring it out." Another pause. "Don't call her mom yet, let me handle it."
He'd made it sound routine. A stomach thing. Figuring it out. I stared at the ceiling tiles and counted the little holes while my heart beat too loud. He hadn't said I was bleeding. He hadn't said the doctor used the word urgent. He hadn't said divorce at all.
When he came back, he slid his phone into his pocket and gave me a small, practiced smile. The kind he'd used when his family asked how we were doing at holidays.
"You okay?" he asked. "Do you need water?"
I shook my head. My throat was dry, but I didn't want him to do anything else for me right then.
The curtain pulled back and a nurse came in with a computer on wheels. She was younger, with her hair pulled back, and she smiled at both of us.
"Paula, Dr. Chen wants to order an ultrasound next. We'll get you down there as soon as transport is free," she said. She looked at him. "And it's so good you two are working things out. That makes this so much less stressful for her."
I felt my hand tighten around the blanket.
"Excuse me?" I said, quiet.
She glanced at the chart. "Oh, your husband mentioned you decided to pause the separation and focus on your health. I just wanted to say, we've seen that support makes a big difference."
He didn't look at me. He adjusted the coat on his lap.
"I told them we're talking things through," he said softly, to me, not to her. "I didn't want them to think — I wanted them to know I'm here for you."
"I'm not reconciling," I said. My voice was flat and barely above a whisper. I didn't raise it. I couldn't, not with the curtain open and the hallway traffic passing.
The nurse's smile faltered. She looked between us.
"Okay," she said carefully. "I'll update the notes to show next of kin only. Let me check on that transport."
She left the curtain open wider when she went. The hallway air felt colder.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Paula. I didn't lie. I just didn't give them our whole history in triage. They asked if I was family and I said I'm your husband. Because I am."
"You told them we're getting back together," I said. "You told your mom we rescheduled like it was nothing. Like we still have an appointment to keep."
"Hold on to me," he said, and for a second I thought he was quoting the street again. But he was looking at my hand on the bed rail. "I'm just trying to hold this together until you're stable."
The phrase landed wrong. Hold on to me had been an instruction when I couldn't stand. Now it felt like a hand over my mouth.
I pulled my hand back under the blanket.
"Don't answer for me again," I said.
He nodded. He didn't argue. That was worse than if he had.
A transport aide knocked on the wall. "Paula? Ultrasound's ready when you are."
The nurse returned and started unlocking the bed. The wheels clicked.
"We're taking her down now," she told him. "You can wait here. We'll come get you when she's back."
He stood, his coat in his arms. "Can I walk with her?"
May you like
"Family waits here," the aide said, already pushing the rail forward.
They wheeled me out and he stayed standing beside the empty chair, shrinking in the doorway as the bed rolled past the nurses' station toward the double doors at the end of the hall.
