Sometimes, she says, these things just happen. And it’s nobody’s fault.
Yeah, he says. Thanks. Thank you.
She nods, again. And then she walks down the corridor without another word and he sits back down. Feels his world moving into a new version of itself, just like it had in the chapel, before, and then not long afterwards Nora is back in front of him, looking as dishevelled and exhausted as Bren feels.
I’ve never been so shattered, she says as she sits down beside him. And at the same time, so unbelievably awake.
How’s he doing, Bren asks, and Nora says amazingly. The doctor says he can’t work for a while, he’ll need to take six to eight weeks to rest, but most people make a full recovery. And he seems himself, I think. More himself than he’s seemed in weeks.
Bren says that’s great. They sit in silence for a while, Bren thinking of the doctor, and the long-ago past; Nora thinking of the present or the more recent past, presumably, because of what she says next.
It’s crazy, isn’t it? she says. That we were all so caught up in other things that we didn’t see what was so … obvious.
It wasn’t that obvious, though, Bren says. I’ve been googling it. So many people do the same thing, with this. Fall while they’re skiing, or on a night out, drunk, then pin the symptoms on other stuff. Heatstroke. Bad colds. Being new parents, not getting enough sleep.
Worrying your wife is gonna leave you before the wedding, Nora says.
Yeah, Bren says, and they sit in more silence with that word,wife, as the hospital wakes up around them. A telephone rings. Doors are pushed open, swing closed.
Thank you for not getting on that plane, Nora says.
It wasn’t a big deal, Bren says, but she says that it was. And he can’t take it, this gratitude of hers. Looking at him with such understanding and love, as she so often does; as he so often hasn’t deserved.
I dated this psychologist once, he tells her. A beat, between them.
I thought you didn’t date?
Took her as a lover, then, he says, and they both snort, as another nurse walks by with a clipboard. She told me about this thing, he says, called Counterfactual Curiosity. Which I’ve been thinking about a lot, lately. Like how yourlife could’ve gone a different way, if you’d boarded a different boat.
Nora does not move. Just looks at him.
I would’ve married you, Nora, Bren tells her. If I’d boarded a different boat.
Long look, between them, then. A long, indefinable something like relief; but a relief that also hurts, if pain can be sweet, somehow, a comfort. And Nora stands up, her dress rustling around her and then around him because she drops herself into his lap, wraps her arms around his neck and leaves a hard kiss on the top of his head. She smells of hospitals and linen and citrus. Says his name, and he can’t see her face but he can feel her warmth, feel the solid soft Nora of her, pressing him close.
I love you, she says. You’ll always be. Well. We’ll always be us.
Yeah, he says.
Which is something nobody else could come close to, she says. I chose my boat. But it doesn’t mean I unchose you. You know?
And he does.
For so long, I wanted to be the person that could take your pain away, she says, into his hair, or give you what you wanted. But I didn’t know what that looked like.
How could you, Bren says, when I didn’t, either.
This shared truth binds them, like a rope; or something stronger, more invisible, like spider silk. Then she kisses his head again and gets up. Stands there, looking at him, in her wedding dress. Covered in stories he does not know.
I know it’s waiting for you, she tells him. Whatever it is. A person, or a calling, that’ll make you feel most like yourself. And then you won’t need to keep looking.
He nods. Once. And she does, too, in the direction of Robin’s room.
I’m gonna, she says, and he says yeah.
Changes, he calls after her. By 2Pac.
She turns, as she’s pushing open the swing door.
