Another doctor approached. Betty thought she looked like she could be Sybil’s younger sister. A little blonder, a little thinner, fewer lines around the eyes.
“Mark, is everything okay?” She reached her fingers toward his arm, then took notice of Sybil, not just Sybil’s foot, and yanked her hand back as if Mark were a live wire threatening electrocution.
“Oh my god,of course,” Sybil said, her voice a full octave lower now. “The anesthesiologist.”
“I’m sorry?” the woman, whose fair skin was now beet red, said.
“Your perfume,” Sybil hissed. “I might have a knife in my foot, but my nose works just fine.”
“Sybil, I think you’re going into shock,” Mark said.
“If it’s shock that I came to this ER for you to treat me and instead, I’m meeting yourlover,” Sybil said, “then you are correct.”
Now the nurses were all paying attention. Betty saw one move her hand to cover her mouth, and the other two looked like they were either going to live-tweet this or possibly pee in their pants. She glanced to the corner and noticed the security cameras clocking this as well. Just a precautionary measure for the hospital, but there was no denying that Betty was wellexposed now. This was why she had always been an island. This was how she got into trouble, by softening and actually caring about people. She’d learned to drive that way because Levi had taught her that she needed to have every available resource at her disposal to stay safe.In case you ever need to get away quickly, he’d said,better tobe prepared. SoPole Positionwasn’t exactly traditional driver’s ed. It was emergency driver’s ed.
“Syb,” Mark said, then Zeke took a step forward, and Mark shut up.
“Can you please treat her like you would any other patient?” he said, his voice booming, and Betty was certain that Mark’s testicles curled up nearly inside of him. This was absolutely incredible. She wanted to take notes. She wanted to film it. She wanted a mother who stood up to her husband like this. She wanted to be a woman who had the courage to do the same. She wanted to be a normal teenager who didn’t practice driving at a dingy arcade/pizza place and instead had parents who paid for a driving instructor or gave her the freedom to drive herself in the first place.
“Not like any other patient,” Sybil said. “He’s really not a very good doctor. I let him cheat off of me through medical school and had to hold his hand through our residency.” She started to say more but seemed to think the better of it.
“I don’t think—” the anesthesiologist started.
“I don’t carewhatyou think,” Sybil said. “But if someone doesn’t get this knife out of my foot in less than two minutes, I will not be held responsible for my actions.”
“Do I need to call security? Mark, should I call security?” the anesthesiologist stuttered.
Betty watched Mark grow increasingly rattled, his eyes darting from his wife to his mistress. It was almost enough to distract her entirely from Grand Central—had that really justbeen an hour ago?She tucked her hand into her pocket and felt Caleb’s card. That part she hadn’t been imagining. She let herself drift for a moment to another world, another time, when she was just a normal girl who collided with a normal boy, and they would go on a normal date and have normal drinks then normal sex then maybe some normal months or years together.
Betty had never had a real boyfriend for a variety of reasons.
Zeke inched closer to Mark. “Do not call security, dude.”
“I can’t believe…are you twofriends?” Mark really had a problem focusing. No wonder Sybil didn’t seem to like him very much.
Zeke placed a hand on Sybil’s shoulder, and she tilted her head toward it. It was a master class move, Betty thought. Enough of a hint to worry Mark; enough of a threat to maybe make him panic.
“We are,” Zeke said, though he may as well have said that they were fucking, given the look in his eye. Betty wondered if something wasn’t brewing between the two of them, which she would endorse because she genuinely liked them both—and also, maybe it might divert Sybil into less mothering. Betty did enjoy her doting, but she suspected that Levi would disapprove of her having any parental figures in her life. She made a mental note to track him down. They’d gotten good at checking in every few months, but—she tried to rewind the calendar—it felt like it had been longer than that by now.
“How do you know each—” Mark started, but Sybil cut him off with a guttural howl.
“My big fucking toe is dangling from my fucking foot, Mark! If you want a goddamn autograph, he’ll do it afterward!”
The blood drained from Sybil’s husband’s face. How easily she emasculated him in front of the staff; how sharply she cut him down to size. Betty absolutely loved it. She tried tomemorize everything about it. She tried to picture her saying these sorts of things to her father, to Noah, to Jacob, to Patience once she made herself over in her husband’s image.Fuck all of you. Fuck the patriarchy!She never did, never would. But she enjoyed thinking about it all the same.
“Right, right,” a nurse said as she rushed over. “Dr.Foster, I’m taking her into room 305. If you aren’t up for treating her, please let me know immediately so I can page the on-call resident.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the anesthesiologist said. “Of course we can treat her.”
“If you even think of working me up,” Sybil said to her, her voice so calm that Betty thought she might be an actual sociopath, “I will take this knife out of my foot myself, and then all bets are off.”
The anesthesiologist stiffened. “Is that a threat? Are you threatening me?”
“No,” Sybil said as the nurse began to wheel her away. “The threat is that when I walk out of here, Mark is all yours. You wanted him? You got him. Good luck.”
16
Night Five
