“Maybe the anticipation was too much for me. You've been wanting to tell me for a long time. I thought you might never get up the courage. You're seeing someone.”
He moved away from her and took a breath. “You know?”
“Don't tell me about her, Craig, okay? I really don't want to talk about her.”
“You knew and you didn't tell me. It's been so hard, Gretchen. Do you know, there's never a good time to tell someone something like this. Never! Not when she's brushing her teeth, not when she's putting on her nylons in the morning. Not at dinner when she's tired.” He smiled a rueful smile. “Not when she's dancing, obviously.”
“I agree. The dancing started out so promising. I was enjoying myself.”
“But you knew all along,” he said.
“I didn't want to know.”
“Now you do.”
“Now you've unloaded, can we just forget about it?”
“Gretchen, it's over between us. I'm leaving.”
“No!”
“I packed yesterday.”
“While I was in surgery?”
“I know… it's low. But I've been trying to move out for weeks, and you stall me, and you act so horribly nice, or you get sick or have a rotten day at work. Don't tell me you didn't know things were bad. You act like a clown, stumbling around, just wild. You'll do anything to avoid facing this.”
“You think I broke my leg on purpose?”
“You're a good dancer.”
“You think that?”
“Well, did you?”
“You've got such an ego. I don't think I ever realized. I'm seeing a side of you that I don't like very much. And when did I become a clown in your eyes? After you met the lovely alternate lady?”
“She really has nothing to do with this.”
“Liar. If you hadn't lined her up, you couldn't leave. You're no one unless you're with someone.”
“See what I mean? Why would you want to hold on to someone like me? I'm a big nobody to you, a parasite. You've lost all respect.”
“I've heard about this happening to people. I just never thought it would happen to us. Marriages have ups and downs, that's natural.”
“We've been down so long…”
“I know what you're going to say, that dumb thing, it looks like up to me. It's awful when you can predict every word someone's about to say! But, Craig, you always told me you loved me. What about our baby?”
“You're pregnant?”
The lengthy pause made him drop his cell phone. “No,” she said finally. “But I thought we were ready. You said we were ready.”
He pushed hair off his forehead. “Scared me there for a minute.” He picked up the phone, fiddling with it, opening it, and closing it. “Touché.”
“Are we fighting? I thought you were telling me something.”
“We don't have to fight. You're right.”
“But if you insist on talking about this… aberration… I need an explanation. You married me for a reason. For life.”
“We've been married ten years.”
“Not a long marriage…”
“A very long time. Listen, this was a bad idea. Let's get you home and talk there. They're doing the paperwork. Why don't you put your clothes on?”
But Gretchen picked up a magazine instead.
He peered into a brown paper sack on the floor beside him, then tossed it onto her bed. “Please, get dressed.”
“The paperwork could take hours.”
“Or a few minutes. That nurse looked efficient.”
“I'm tired. I just had a damn operation. And now you want to take me home so that you can leave me there alone. How am I supposed to cope? I can't even walk!”
“Gretchen, you said you needed a ride, so I came. I'll rent you a wheelchair. We'll call your mom, locate a goddamned attendant. You'll be taken care of, I promise.”
“I had to beg you because otherwise you wouldn't have come, would you?”
“I don't have much time. I want to get back. And you know I hate these places. Don't you want to go home? You'll be much more comfortable there.”
“I need more time. I have a lot of pain.” A bulging white splint covered her left leg all the way down from the knee, but she wasn't looking at it. She was looking at him.
“Hospitals are full of sick people…”
“That time I sprained my wrist, you got Mom to bail me out. I guess I'm one of the sick ones, again, huh? You'd rather avoid me completely.”
“My policy is, and always has been, get out as soon as you can. Get home to your own nice clean sheets, fresh pillows…”
“Were you hoping she'd be waiting for you out there?” She looked out through the large window into the mucky yellow puddles of the dark parking lot. Headlights lit the blue plastic curtain behind her and made the branches of a sprawling oak tree outside blobs against the night sky. She had turned off the light over her bed, turned off the television. The only light aside from a reading light over her book came through the window. “Well, were you?”
“No.”
“Where do you think she is right now? Praying I'll let you go? Is she the one you keep calling?”
Three discreet knocks on the side of the open door announced the arrival of another gang of medical personnel, an attendant after blood, a nurse to pull out Gretchen's IV, a helper to knock around the dinner tray. They marched in and out of the room, as strict as army troops on maneuvers.
Gretchen pushed hard on the cotton they left behind on her hand where the IV had entered. “It hurts,” she said. She started to cry. Craig stood up, put a hand on her shoulder, and held on while she shook.
A sudden commotion escalated the echoing in the hallway. Several people burst into the room, boisterous as a theater troupe leaping onstage for a bow. The lights blasted on, and the softness of the moment was destroyed by the details, the look on Craig's face, so put-upon. The wrinkled sheets, all balled up at the foot of her bed. The huge white bandages on her left leg. Gretchen stopped crying and Craig left her side. A young girl, black-haired, pierced with metal loops from her eyebrow right down to her sandaled toes, pushed the blue curtain aside, came over to the bed, and looked sympathetically at Gretchen.
“I'm guessing I'm your roommate. Katie. What happened to you?” she said, her eyes brushing over Craig to Gretchen and back again.
“I broke my leg.”
“Ouch,” she said. “How'd you do it?”
“Dancing.”
“Really? Well, that's almost cool.”
“What about you?” Gretchen asked.
“I have an abscess on my boob.” She disappeared behind the curtain. A woman with short, wispy, gray-blonde hair smiled apologetically. She wore pink lipstick, and a matching sleeveless blouse that showed loose skin under the arms. “Can I have your extra chair?” she asked.
Craig nodded. The woman, Katie's mother, possibly, pulled the chair to the foot of the other bed. Katie's skin was brown, the woman's was stark, glaring white. A big, dark, bearded man with a British accent filled up another chair.
Gretchen pulled the curtain so that only the lower part of her body remained exposed and she could not see her neighbor's head, although she could see most of the bed and the rest of the room. Craig, sitting toward the foot of her bed again, could see almost everything, although the curtain provided a psychological shield. Everyone acted as if they were in entirely separate realms.
A discussion started up on the other side of the room. With help, the girl climbed on the bed and promptly started to whine. “I'm so hungry,” she said. “Why can't I eat something? Mother, have you got anything I can eat?”
“I'm so sorry, honey, but you have to wait,” her mother said. “They won't let me feed you.”
“They'll give you anesthesia before the… they fix things up,” said the Brit. “They don't want you tossing up food in there.”