My mind scrambles to come up with the date, which I’ve only heard a few times. “February 20.” Fuck, I can’t remember the year, and I’m too frantic to do the math. “She’s 26.”
The nurse’s fingers move quickly across the keyboard. “Does she have any existing conditions?”
I blink. “I-I don’t think so. Not that I know of.”
She nods and types something. “Is she taking any medications?”
I run a hand through my hair. Shit, I should know this. I think I spotted a few pill bottles in Maura’s bathroom back in Toronto, but I didn’t look too closely. At the time, it seemed nosyand intrusive. It wasn’t my business if she took any medications. Now, I feel like a complete idiot.
The nurse stares at me with narrowed eyes. I’m sure she’s wondering what kind of husband doesn’t know his own wife’s medical history. She must think I’m a cold, heartless, inconsiderate asshole.
She’d be right about that.
“I don’t know,” I confess. “I know she has a surgical scar on her chest. She takes some pills, but I don’t know what they are.”
The nurse nods. “Fine. Let me see if I can access her medical records. Where are you from?”
“Toronto, in Canada.”
She starts typing again, her fingers moving at an astonishing speed. I wonder vaguely if she took typing lessons. Fuck, my mind can’t seem to focus. I tap my foot on the floor to release the frantic energy that’s started flowing through my limbs. I wish I could pace the hallway, or better yet, break into a run. I need movement, motion,action.The walls are too clean and white, like the walls in my apartment. The walls before Maura hung paintings on them.
God, I don’t even feel like myself. Even in a crisis, I’ve always been able to gather myself and act rationally. Then again, I’ve never had to wait breathlessly for answers from doctors. After the accident, my parents were horribly, undeniably, mercifully dead before I could rush to a hospital. Then, there were bodies to identify, funerals to arrange, plans to make. Concrete tasks I could write on a list. Not this panicked limbo, thiswaiting.
The nurse asks me a few more questions between typing bursts, and I give our address and my social insurance number. Finally, she smiles, apparently successful.
“I’ll get this information to the doctor. Please, go back to the waiting room until we call you.”
I glance back at Maura’s room. The wooden door has no window, no way for me to glance in and check on her. I swallow, my mouth feeling bone dry. In there, my wife is lying flat on a slab while gloved hands and machines try to coax life back into her. The sudden, ghastly image of my mother’s still body flashes into my mind. She wasn’t breathing. Her entire body was waxy and still.
That can’t be Maura. An hour ago, my wife was sweaty, flushed, smiling. It can’t all be over. It just can’t be.
“I need to see her,” I rasp.
The nurse shakes her head. “The doctors need space to do their job.”
“I won’t bother them.” I need to look at Maura’s chest and see if it’s rising. I need to make sure she’s not still. I need to know it’s not all ruined, all my fault, all?—
A cold cylinder presses into my hand. It’s the nurse, handing me a thin paper cup of water. Automatically, I sip it. The cool liquid slides down my throat, anchoring me. I blink down at the nurse in her green-leafed scrubs.
“You need to sit down,” she orders, not unkindly. “You’re going to collapse if you don’t take a minute to drink and catch your breath. The last thing we need is both of you unconscious.”
Some small, rational part of me understands. Waiting here in this white hallway isn’t the answer. “And you’ll get me if anything goes wrong with Maura?” I ask.
“I promise.”
I walk back to the waiting room in a daze, barely aware of where I am. I startle when I see Kostos sitting in a chair, two coffees in hand.
“I could not leave,” he says simply. “You are a stranger here. I will stay until she is awake.”
A pang of wistfulness stabs through me. It’s such a fatherly gesture, caring and supportive. I’ve lived a decade withoutmy own father now, and there hasn’t been another time that someone stepped up to take on that role.
I suppose Jack Archer has tried in his own way. He’s not exactly a warm man; he’s had enough trouble connecting with his own son, even before he found out about Ryan dating Pippa.
As I take the coffee from Kostos, there’s no way I could put my gratitude into words. It feels altogether bigger than the “thank you” I give him.
I scroll mindlessly through my phone, re-reading the bombardment of texts the guys sent earlier.
I didn't respond to any of it. What would I even say?
