Page 92 of Office Hours
He looks at me like I’m a miracle.
“You look beautiful, Simone,” he says, and squeezes my hand, careful not to crush it. “You did great.”
I want to say something clever, something to prove I’m not a lost cause, but all that comes out is, “Water?”
He pours it, brings the straw to my lips, patient as a saint. It tastes like nothing, but the coolness soothes the raw patches in my throat.
A nurse comes in. Checks my vitals. Tells me I did great, that the doctor will be in again soon.
Liam sits back in the visitor’s chair, knees jiggling. He doesn’t touch me again, but he doesn’t look away, either.
I drift off. When I wake, he’s still there.
The physician isa blur of white coat and cheerful competence. She shows me before-and-after images: big, ugly fibroids, now excised and gone. She says, “We’re optimistic about your recovery. With some healing, you’ll have every chance at a normal life.” She says it like she means it.
I don’t cry, but something in my chest goes loose and floaty.
Liam listens to the whole speech, asks the right questions, then writes down the instructions word for word.
When the doctor leaves, I look at him.
“You don’t have to stay,” I say.
He smiles. “I want to.”
For the next two days, he comes every afternoon. He brings books—some literary, some just for fun. When my brain is too foggy to focus, he reads out loud, voice steady and sure, turning the hospital room into a different world.
He brings tea in a thermos, chamomile, the kind I like best. He adjusts my pillows without asking. He never tries to kiss me, or touch me, unless I reach for him first.
At night, when visiting hours end, he leaves quietly, promises to come back. He always does.
Andie visits, too. She brings gossip, sour candy, the news from campus. She sits on the edge of the bed and needles me about “finally getting my uterus in working order.” When she catchesLiam in the hallway, she nods at him, nothing more. It feels like an amnesty.
Every morning, the sun is a little higher. Every morning, I feel a little less like a collection of wounds and a little more like myself.
On the last day,I stand at the window in my paper gown, looking out at the parking lot. There are people, moving about their days without any idea who I am. For the first time, I want to be back there. Not to hide, but to start again.
Liam sits in the visitor’s chair, flipping through a battered copy of Rilke.
“Hey,” I say, turning to him. “Why did you do all this?”
He sets the book down. “You mean the books? The tea?”
I shake my head. “You know what I mean.”
He stands, crosses the space between us, but not too close.
“Because I care about you,” he says. “Because I want you to get better. Not for me, not for us—just for you.”
I believe him.
For the first time, I really do.
I let him hold my hand, and when his thumb traces the old, familiar pattern on my palm, I don’t feel fear or need. Just a soft, electric hope.
“I don’t know what happens next,” I say, honest as I can be.
“Neither do I,” he replies, and this time, it feels like freedom.
