“Madison Ruth Hayes, we’re not doing this.” His stomach undulates under his too-small shirt. The sound that leaks from his lungs is something between a wheeze and a groan. What the hell is going on?
He called me by my married, legal name. He does that when I scare the shit out of him, which is usually on the daily when I do something I don’t have the skills for and haven’t bothered to research. He used my full government name when I went into the attic to catch the squirrel that had somehow burrowed its way in through the vents.
I keep my trap shut and wait.
Finally, after what feels like full minutes, he straightens up and looks at me. Ewan’s face is red and puffy, and his eyes are shining. Has he been…crying?
Never in my life did I ever think I’d see the day.
“Ewan, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine.”
“No. You’re not,” he says. Unlike back in the day, he says it softly.
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t say you’re fine. I don’t want to hear it. You are going to rest until you’re better. If your doctor says you’re good to go back to work in a week, too damn bad, because it’s going to be two weeks after that.”
I blink at him. “Ewan.”
“And,” he goes on, “If you don’t like me staying on your ass every minute while you heal, then you can suck it up, buttercup.”
I listen while he lays out the plan. I don’t protest, and I don’t interrupt. He needs to get this all out. Perhaps he needs to get this all out of his system before he feels I’m out of the danger zone and we can go back to our regularly scheduled lives.
When he’s finished, a woman dressed in business casual and a hospital ID lanyard knocks on the door.
“Hi there,” she says, smiling at Ewan and me. “I’m Denise from billing and…oh, okay.”
“I…what?” I’m so confused by the way she’s looking at Ewan.
“Hi Denise,” he says with a smile, already filling out a check.
“Um, what’s going on here?” I ask. Was that jealousy in my voice? No, that’s crazy.
“Denise and I go way back,” Ewan says. “How much do we owe for this visit?”
Denise tells us the amount, and I’m ready to fall out of bed.
But Ewan is cutting a check.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Paying the bill.”
“You can’t do that.”
“I’m your husband, and even if I weren’t, you won’t stop me.”
He didn’t say can’t. He said won’t.
And he’s right. I can put up a fight, but in the end, I won’t stop him from trying to help.
“Not that I’m trying to accumulate debt or anything, but how come I never got a bill from the last time I ended up in the ER?” I ask her.
Denise taps words into the chunky little medical laptop she carries around. “Let me see…oh. That’s because your ER visit was already paid for before you left last time.”
“By whom?”
She looks at the check and looks at the screen. “Your husband.”
