Chương 4
“No. No, stay with me.”
They opened again.
For a moment he looked toward the ceiling.
Then toward the monitor.
Then his eyes seemed to pass over Emily without knowing her.
The pain of that was immediate and embarrassingly childish.
She had imagined waking as recognition.
She had imagined his face finding hers.
Instead his eyes moved the way a person’s did when waking in a hotel room and not remembering where the bathroom was.
“Daniel.”
Nothing.
Dr. Shah arrived less than two minutes later.
By then Daniel’s eyes had closed.
Another exam.
Another set of questions.
Another warning not to overinterpret.
Emily began to understand that hope could become a form of physical labor.
Every improvement required lifting.
Every uncertainty had weight.
At seven, Father Michael came to tell her the guests were leaving.
“We can try another day,” he said.
Emily stood near the chapel doors with her veil folded over one arm.
The hallway smelled like disinfectant and the tomato soup somebody had spilled near the nurses’ station.
“There might not be another day.”
Father Michael’s eyes softened.
“That was true this morning too.”
She looked at him.
He was not trying to be profound.
That was one reason she trusted him.
He adjusted the wedding book under his arm.
“Daniel planned to stand here.”
“I know.”
“He planned to say vows.”
“I know.”
“He planned a great many things. The accident changed what was possible, not necessarily what was true.”
Emily stared through the narrow glass panel in the chapel door.
Daniel’s bed was visible inside.
Carol sat beside him.
Rachel had gone downstairs to talk to relatives.
“What if he heard the whole thing?”
“Then he heard you tell him the truth.”
“What if he didn’t want me to do it?”
“Then he has always had spectacularly bad timing.”
She gave Father Michael a tired look.
He raised one shoulder.
“You’ve both said worse in my office.”
She smiled despite herself.
The smile hurt.
Then it went away.
“I thought getting married would fix one thing.”
He waited.
“Not him.” She shook her head. “I knew it wouldn’t fix him. I just thought there would be one thing nobody could take away from us. One fact. We were supposed to be married today, so I would make that still true.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know if making it true means doing it without him or waiting for him.”
Father Michael nodded slowly.
“That sounds like a better question.”
Emily disliked him a little for saying it.
He could tell.
“Priests are irritating professionally,” he added.
Daniel would definitely have liked him.
By nine that night, the ivory wedding dress had become impossible.
It pulled under Emily’s arms. The lace cuffs caught on the bed rail. Every time she went into the restroom, she had to gather the skirt in both hands and stare at herself in the mirror looking like a woman from a photograph taken before something terrible.
Rachel brought her gray sweatpants and one of Daniel’s old college T-shirts from their apartment.
Emily changed in the staff restroom.
She folded the dress carefully.
Halfway through, she stopped.
Then she stuffed the whole thing into the garment bag without fixing the sleeves.
The act felt vicious and wonderful.
When she returned, Carol was asleep in the recliner.
Daniel had been transferred back upstairs to the neurocritical care unit. The chapel flowers had been distributed among nurses, patient families, and anyone who happened to be nearby. One arrangement of white roses sat on the windowsill in Daniel’s room because Rachel refused to let all of them disappear.
Emily took the wedding ring from her pocket.
She had nearly lost it twice that afternoon.
She set it on the rolling bedside table.
Then moved it.
Too easy to knock off.
She put it in the small plastic cup that had once held Daniel’s medications.
That seemed disrespectful.
She took it out again.
Finally she slid it onto her own right index finger.
Wrong hand.
Wife.
Her throat tightened.
“You’re an ass,” she whispered.
Daniel did not react.
She sat down.
The room was darker than the chapel, lit mostly by monitors and the hallway glow beneath the door. An IV pump clicked softly. Daniel’s breathing remained shallow but regular.
Emily watched him for a while.
Then, because she had talked to him almost continuously for three days and could no longer think of anything meaningful to say, she told him about the catering.
“Your uncle Greg stole fourteen crab cakes.”
Nothing.
“I saw him put them in a napkin.”
Beep.
“Jess says that’s not stealing because technically we paid for them.”
Beep.
“Your mother thinks you spoke today because you’re coming back.”
She looked at his face.
“I think you spoke today because you wanted to correct me.”
Nothing.
“That is more believable.”
Her hand found his.
She was not sure when she fell asleep.
She woke at 2:13 a.m. because Daniel coughed.
Not a dramatic sound.
One dry cough.
Emily came upright so quickly her neck cramped.
“Daniel?”
His eyes were open.
This time they were fully open.
She stood.
“Hey.”
His gaze moved toward her voice.
It stopped on her face.
Emily gripped the rail.
“Hey, baby.”
Daniel stared.
His brow tightened.
She waited for recognition.
It did not come.
His mouth moved.
She leaned close.
“What?”
He swallowed.
His lips were dry.
“Water.”
The word was weak but unmistakable.
Emily laughed before she could stop herself.
Then she cried.
One tear escaped, and she wiped it away angrily.
“Of course. Of course your first request is water.”
Daniel blinked.
His eyes moved over her face again.
“Who…”
The word was barely air.
Emily’s body went still.
“Who what?”
His forehead creased.
“Who are you?”
The world did not end.
May you like
That was the first strange thing.
The monitor did not alarm. The ceiling did not fall. Nobody rushed into the room. A ventilation fan continued humming as if her fiancé had not just looked directly at her and asked who she was.
