Oh, Nora says.
Bren puts his phone down on the chair beside him. He is looking at them both, not just Nora; acknowledging Robin, as well. His face is drawn with tiredness, his hair mussed from where he has tried and failed, presumably, to sleep on the foam leather chair.
Have you been discharged? he asks, and Nora looks at Robin, who tilts his head.
Not quite, Robin says. In fact. Could we borrow you, Bren?
_
And so Bren Ferguson is the sole witness as Nora and Robin are wed – or blessed – by the hospital chaplain. He stands in the front pew in his hiking boots with his sleepless eyes and missed flight, his heart half numbed. He only moves when the chaplain asks if they have rings, which they do not. They were going to buy them afterwards, Nora says. And then. Well.
And then, Robin says, gesturing to his head.
And for a second Bren thinks about taking out his hoop earring and asking if that’ll do, for now, for the symbolism, or whatever, but it feels a step too far and this is far enough so instead he scratches his arm, swallows, hard, as Nora says who needs rings when you don’t have a marriage licence, and the chaplain seems enchanted by their good humour. Most hospital blessings are probably for different, more devastating reasons, Bren muses, as he watches him false-marry them both. Bedside ceremonies. Out of time. But this morning it’s just two people, deciding to share their life, because they can. Because they were always going to.
The chaplain riffs a little, says some things about love and commitment and faith. There is a small stained-glass window behind them, a wooden cross on the wall, in the weirdest, most un-Nora-like scene he could imagine, which is why it works, in fact. That and her patchwork dress, Robin in his silk shirt and smart shoes, a shaved patch on his head. Bren has always known, in a part buried inside himself, that Nora – cold-swimming, tree-climbing, art-making Nora – was too special for normal, and this ceremony is anything but.
It is strangely brief. Bren thinks, as he watches them saying their vows, that he’ll feel something significant when it happens. Like he’s been expecting to for months, each time he’s turned it over in his mind. But just as he’d felt when summiting a mountain or landing somewhere new; just as when he’s walked a shore at twilight, pitched a tent above the cloud or paddled into a fjord; just as one thing has never brought him that full gratification, that wholeness he’s been looking for – he feels something merely evolve. It is not nothing, but nor is it momentous. Just the sense of one moment in his life sliding into another. Ashes scattered. Feelings shared. I loved you, I loved you too. On we go.
And we’re done, the chaplain says, before he claps.
There is a pause in which Bren is slow to start clapping, too, makes a crowing noise like a lost boy because this moment seems to deserve more than four pat-a-cake palms, and Nora and Robin walk past him down the aisle, holding hands, bashful and cry-laughing and Bren gives them a minute alone, still clapping, before he follows behind.
_
Well, Nora says, back in the hospital hallway. Let’s get you to bed.
Nora! Robin says. Don’t be soforwardin front of our wedding guests.
Guest, singular, Bren says.
Just the low-key wedding I wanted, Nora jokes, and they all stand there for a second, not knowing quite what to say. Thank yous. Touch of an arm, squeezed hands. And when Nora turns to walk Robin back to his room, Bren wonders whether he should go, too, but instead, he sits back down on the chair from before.
Pulls his phone out, puts it away again. Taps his foot.
A nurse walks past, a doctor, and then when a second doctor passes he says excuse me and stands up.
She is middle-aged, has red hair, like his. Stern eyes.
Sorry, he says. D’you mind if I ask you something?
And the doctor doesn’t say yes or no but doesn’t keep walking, either, so he says years ago, my dad had this heart attack. And, he. He died.
The doctor’s eyes soften, somewhat, but before she can speak, Bren says I was there with him. I saw it happen. And I feel like.
He has to swallow, several times.
I’ve always felt like I could’ve done something, he says. When I turned him over, he was looking up at me, and I should’ve helped. But I didn’t know what to do, I just yelled, and freaked out, and stayed with him. And when the medics came, they performed CPR for like … over an hour. Just in front of me, and my mum, for so long. And I can’t help but think if I’d done that, then maybe … he wouldn’t have died. But he did. He died.
The doctor clears her throat and asks some questions. How old was he, had he had a history of heart problems, no. Had he vomited, yes. The doctor, nodding. Bren answering as if he’s far away, looking down at himself from elsewhere.
Sounds like a myocardial infarction, the doctor tells him. Sadly it’s more common than you’d think, in men in their fifties who seem otherwise healthy: sudden death caused by MI. Cardiac arrest.
Bren nods; this much he knew.
Butsuddendeath is key, here, she says. The medics are trained to deliver CPR for a really long time in an otherwise young, healthy-seeming person, but in reality? There was nothing they – or you – could have done.
Bren looks at her like she’s the sun.
