Wheels-down at Andrews. Can I come by?
John is taking a turn guarding the door. I stand, stretch, and walk over to him. “Shae wants to know if she can come visit,” I ask. “What’s the situation?Honestly?”
He lets out one of “those” sighs. If we weren’t locked in this room, the five of us—not counting Kev—he wouldn’t have reacted like that, but he wouldn’t have given me a forthright answer, either.
“Tomorrow morning after their shift change, and after morning rush hour ends, would be preferable. We can lock down the hospital now, but I’ll need to call in and roll people out of bed,it’ll disrupt hospital operations, and I’ll have to close their ER to intake, which is full tonight. I mean, Iwill—”
I shake my head. “No.” I walk back to my chair and tap a reply. “I’ll ask her to put in a formal request through her detail for late morning tomorrow.”
I tap out a reply I imagine is making her purse her lips, take a deep breath and hold it to keep thefuckfrom leaving her mouth,and even as she does, her public mask slips back into place.
Logistics nightmare. Request late morning tomorrow, pls.
I know from how long she takes to reply that she’s now sitting there and seriously debating trying to play the POTUS card to defy me.
I add a text.
DYD.
My phone rings seconds later from a blocked number, meaning it’s probably her official, secure phone.
“I meanit,” I answer by way of greeting, using the only tone I safely can use on her without us being alone together. “Don’t youdareplay the POTUS card.”
Eventually, I hear a soft huff I know is a laugh. “Did I ever tell you how fucking spooky it is when you read my mind like that? It’s bad enough when Kev does it.”
I manage a weary smile, so she’ll hear it in my voice. Otherwise, she won’t buy it.“And yet, you still married me, honey. And that’s why he’s our Prophet.” I take a deep breath. “Go home, hug the kids for me, and please apologize to them for me.”
“You aren’t coming home?”
“Not until he opens his eyes.”
She knows better than to argue with me. “If I’m not there, as soon as he does—”
“I’ll call you and put him on the phone so you can tell him yourself.”
“Okay.” I know shehas to get off the line now, because I hear the tears threatening in the soft, breathy way she says it. She’s grasping for the end of the rope and trying to hold on tightly, but she’s frayed.
I know the feeling.
* * * *
The nurses find me a fold-up cot somewhere, and it’s marginally more comfortable than the stupid recliner, except I’m not ready to use it yet.
They’ve backed off his sedation.He’ll stay intubated, for now, until he’s awake and responsive. But right now he’s also on a fuckton of painkillers.
The clock ticks past midnight, and the nurse and on-call stop in to check on him. Thanks to Kev’s job title, he has his own assigned nurse who’s monitoring his vitals on a monitor at a station just outside the room.
The miracles of modern medicine.
She physically steps into theroom to put eyes on him every thirty minutes, and the doctor stops by every hour.
Once they leave, I take my personal phone, open iTunes, and scroll through to the playlist I used when Kev and I last snuck in a good, hard scene what feels like too damn long ago. A playlist he first heard in those sweet two weeks following our reunion, and music compiled from my memories of that first week wespent together.
A lot of ‘80s and ‘90s music, along with classic rock, and some indie rock. I turn the volume up just enough I can hear it, and set my phone on the bed near his pillow. Once again, I take his hand and stroke the backs of his fingers. I think about how, in the past, he’s held on to my hand and squeezed—in pain and in pleasure—and wish I was a praying type of man.
But I’m not.
I haven’t been in years.
