“Oh, Finneas.”
I watched and kept my hands at my sides and breathed through the jealousy because Lorraine grew up with Margaret. Whatever else she was, whatever shit she’d pulled at the office, her concernfor his mother looked genuine right now. I wasn’t going to make a scene in a hospital hallway when the man I loved was scared.
He let her hold him for a few seconds, then pulled her off gently, stepped back, and came to me. Wrapped his arm around my shoulders. The statement was clear. I was here. With him.
“What is she doing here?” The tears dried up so fast it was almost impressive. Her voice went flat, sharp, looking at me with undisguised hostility.
“I asked her to.”
She stared. The older woman, her mother, gave me a slow look from head to toe, cataloguing every flaw, filing them for later. I held both their gazes without blinking because I learned a long time ago that looking away is losing.
The doctor told him his mother was asking for him. He squeezed my hand. “I’ll be right back.” Then he disappeared through the door.
I sat in a plastic hallway chair. Lorraine and her mother sat across from me. The silence was aggressive, thick enough to chew, but I barely noticed because my eyes were on that door and my mind was on what was happening behind it. How scared he must be. How alone he must feel in that room with his mother hooked up to monitors, hearing words like tumor.
“So the assistant’s been promoted,” Lorraine said to her mother, loud enough that I could hear every word. Her mascara was smudged, her jaw tight.
I didn’t respond. My hands were clasped in my lap, knuckles white, and I stared at the door.
“I’m talking to you.”
“I know.”
“You don’t belong here. This is family.”
“I’m here for Finneas.”
“He has family. He doesn’t need you.”
I didn’t take the bait. Didn’t look at her, didn’t engage, just kept my eyes on that door because the person I cared about was behind it getting news that could wreck him and I wasn’t going to waste energy on Lorraine’s bullshit right now. She called me a name under her breath, her mother smirked, and my jaw ached from clenching but I kept my mouth shut. If I opened it right now what came out wouldn’t be appropriate for a hospital.
Minutes passed. Ten, twenty. I sat with my hands in my lap, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, someone’s monitor beeping down the hall. I watched that door, waited, tried not to think about the last time I sat in a hospital hallway waiting for news about someone I loved.
Then the door opened and he came out and his face was different from when he went in. The stone was still there but something behind his eyes had shifted. A distance, a blankness that I’d never seen on him before, like a light going off behind a window.
I stood immediately. “Are you okay?”
He looked at me and for a second I saw devastation, raw and open, before the mask slid back. He told Lorraine and her mother that Margaret wanted to see them. They went in. Lorraine threw a look over her shoulder on her way through the door, a small satisfied smile that saidI’m going in and you’re staying out herelouder than any words could have.
I put my hand on his arm. “What happened in there?”
“She’s sick. It’s serious.”
“Okay. I’m here. Whatever you need.”
He looked at my hand on his arm, then at my face, and I watched something close behind his eyes. A door shutting, slow and deliberate, the warmth pulling back like a tide going out.
“You should go home,” he said. “I need to stay.”
“I can stay too. I don’t mind waiting.”
“No. Go home, Andrea.”
It wasn’t a request. It was a wall going up, brick by brick, right in front of me. I could feel the distance opening between us, his body angling away from my hand, his voice going flat, and there was nothing I could do about it because pushing him right now would be selfish and I knew it. His mother was sick. He was scared. This wasn’t about me.
But it felt like it was about me. It felt like he was choosing to be alone instead of letting me help, choosing the wall over the hand I was holding out, and I didn’t know how to fight that without making everything worse.
I kissed his cheek. He didn’t lean into it. That absence of response hit harder than any words could have.
