Page 111 of People In Love
She reads all of these things she’s embroidered into herdress. Reads them until her vision blurs, and has to blink, look up. There is one other woman in the waiting room, with a baby on her knee. The mother is talking to the infant about the colours on the walls. Pointing out the specks on the floor, dots and triangles, which blur as well when Nora tries to focus, as she feels herself frozen or fading. Like time has stopped, like time won’t finish, like she will forever be in this waiting room and that’s why they’re called what they are, because she will be waiting like this for the rest of time, as punishment for makinghimwait, maybe; she is sickness, she is fear, how is there Easter bunting taped to the wall and foiled chocolate eggs in a basket beneath posters that outline FAST and MHA, and then her phone rings, and it is Bren. It keeps on ringing, and the mother with the baby looks at her. And because she is trying to stay calm, because she is alone, because she doesn’t know what else to do and she thinks she might die of fear but she can’t think about the word die or what she is most afraid of, Nora slides to accept the call.
You picked up, Bren says, and he sounds as surprised as she is. I thought I’d be leaving you a voicemail.
She has no words to respond with. No concept of what she would say.
I’m at the airport, Bren tells her, and when she still doesn’t say a word, he goes on: I’m flying back to Queenstown. Thought I’d phone you directly, this time. Just in case.
There’s a lightness to his voice, but it’s not funny. Has anything ever been? She can hear airport noises in the background, echoes and wheels and a hum of voices; her own still lost in her throat.
Mum said you were getting married today, Bren says.
Blurred eyes, blurred thoughts; blurred triangles on the hospital floor.
So … Bren says, and it’s awkward; all so far away. I wanted to say congratulations, he says, as well as goodbye.
Nora opens her mouth, but what can she say.
What if saying it would make it more real.
Nora? Bren tries, and there’s a tension to his voice, now, a note of impatience. Are you married now, then? Or are you –
But she hangs up, because she can’t answer, can’t say no, we’re not, becausethis, so she stands up and goes back to the desk and before she can ask the receptionist assures her that she’s been in touch with the doctors, that they know she is here.
If they know I’m here then why am I still waiting, Nora asks, and it’s rude of her but she can’t help it, the panic is sucking from her like a leech and they calledme, she tells her, again.
The surgeon will come through when he’s done, she is told. I’m sorry, Miss Harper, I know it’s difficult, but try to wait. Can you call someone to come sit with you?
But the person she would call is in surgery –emergency brain surgery– so Nora just nods, turns away.
Back in the chair, she takes long, steadying breaths and tries to think. She will have to cancel their pizza reservation, for lunch. Make him something soothing, instead. Soup. He has always loved soup, the simplicity and the comfort of it, she will make a fresh soup for him every day of his life.
His life.
Hers.
She sits and waits, thinks she might die – no, can’t think about dying – gets some water from the dispenser, hand shaking, sits back down.
The baby squawks.
The mother squints at her dress.
And when too much or no time at all has crawled by shegoes back to the receptionist who has nothing new to say.How, when it has been an hour, a year. She is wearing a locket and a lot of mascara and Nora is looking at it clagged on her lashes and trying to think of the right thing to say that is assertive but not rude like before and it is because of this, this mental dance she is doing between white-hot dread and social restraint taking up every cell of her whole self, that she does not feel him approach.
Nora, he says, but it is not the right voice. It is not Robin’s.
And she turns to see that Bren is there, in the hospital lobby. Wearing his expedition rucksack, his face serious. Everything slows for her, then, even more than before.
Bren is here. Not on a plane, but here.
But not only does she not care, now she is openly panicking. How did you, she begins, and he holds up his phone, says he tracked her location. And he’s not here to cause trouble – he sees her, in her dress, she’s in herdress– he’s here because she’s his best friend, always has been, and when she didn’t say a word earlier he knew that something was wrong, and when he looked and saw where she was he didn’t think about it, really – he just left the airport, he just … came.
The baby is crying now. The mother stands to shush him, walks in back-patting circles around the room but this only makes him cry louder, and Bren glances at them, then at the signs on the wall, the double doors to the specialist unit before he looks back at Nora.
Why, uh, he says. Why are we here?
Robin had a headache, Nora tells him.
Bren frowns.
