Chapter 8
The night nurse came at eleven and again at midnight. I learned the sound of the blood pressure cuff before I felt it, that tight Velcro rip and the machine's soft whir. She didn't turn on the overhead. She used the small light above my bed and worked around the wires. My husband sat in the plastic chair by the window. He hadn't left since he'd come back.
He'd left for an hour just after ten. He said he needed to move the car and get me something clean to wear. I didn't ask where he'd cleaned it. I didn't ask how anything could be clean that fast at night.
When he came back he carried a paper bag from the hospital gift shop folded under one arm and my cream knit pants and top folded over the other. They were warm. They smelled like the hospital laundry, that over-bleached cotton smell.
"I asked them to run it through," he said. He stood at the foot of the bed. "They couldn't do the coat. They bagged it."
He laid the knit set on the chair now that I wasn't in it. He smoothed the sweater with his palm. The gesture was careful. Tender in a way he hadn't been in months.
"You didn't have to do that," I said.
"I wanted to," he said. "You hate the gown."
I looked at the pants. The cream had gone a little gray from the wash, but they were mine. I felt my throat get tight and I didn't know why.
"Thank you," I said.
He sat back down. The nurse had left the curtain half open and the hallway light made a stripe across his face. He watched me breathe.
At one fifteen the monitor beeped and a different nurse came to check the IV. When she left, I didn't let the quiet settle again.
"You missed the second ultrasound," I said. My voice sounded flat in the room. "You said you had the foundation dinner. You were supposed to drive me."
He didn't answer right away. His hands were clasped between his knees.
"I know," he said.
"And the labs. You said you'd take the morning off and you didn't. I went alone and they told me to reschedule because I was ten minutes late and the lab closed early. I never went back."
"Paula—"
"I told you I was spotting three weeks ago. You said it was stress. You said the lawyers would sort the rest."
He looked down at the floor. The linoleum had a scuff right under his shoe.
"The doctor said tonight that if they'd caught it earlier, I wouldn't be here on a wet night getting carried through glass doors," I said. "That it was missed care. Not bad luck."
It wasn't an accusation the way shouting is. It was just a line laid between us. I watched his jaw work.
"I know what you're saying," he said. "I wasn't there."
"You weren't," I said.
He stood up and moved to the sink, poured water from the plastic pitcher into a cup, brought it to me even though I hadn't asked. I took it. My hand shook a little.
"I scheduled the lawyers on purpose," he said after a minute. He was standing again, not sitting. His voice was low, like he didn't want it to carry past the curtain.
I waited.
"It was our anniversary," he said. "Eight years. I picked that day. I thought if we had to sit in that office on that day, you wouldn't go through with it."
The water in the cup made a small circle when my hand trembled.
"You thought I'd feel guilty," I said.
"I thought you'd remember what we were," he said. "I thought you'd see the date and change your mind. It was the only leverage I had. You'd already checked out."
I stared at him. The stubble on his face caught the hallway light. He looked tired and younger at the same time, like the man I'd married before the coats and the cars and the charity galas.
"You used our anniversary to make me stay," I said.
"I used whatever I had," he said. "I was scared."
I set the cup down on the tray table. The monitor ticked. Somewhere down the hall a cart squeaked.
"So we missed the appointments because you were waiting me out," I said. "And now I'm here."
He didn't defend it. He just nodded once, his eyes on the folded cream sweater.
"I know," he said again.
I felt the tears come but they didn't fall. I breathed through them. The nurse's light was still on above me and it made everything too clear.
"Can you ask them for another room?" I said. "Just for tonight. I need to sleep without being watched."
He flinched. Only a little. A micro-expression around his mouth.
"Paula," he said.
"Not home," I said. "Just down the hall. An empty observation room. I can hear the machines either way. I just need space that isn't you holding me."
He looked at the chair, at the bag, at my folded clothes he'd had cleaned. His tender gesture sat between us and didn't fix anything.
"Okay," he said finally. "I'll ask the desk."
He didn't move right away. Then he picked up the paper bag and set it on the floor by my bed, like leaving it was still doing something.
"I'll be right outside if you need me," he said.
May you like
"I know," I said.
He stepped to the curtain and stopped with his hand on the fabric, waiting for me to change my mind. I didn't. He pulled it back just enough to slip through, and the hallway light cut across my blanket and then was gone.
