Page 188 of The Off Limits Captain
Gil: Unfortunately.
Bill comes down at six-fifteen.
He looks like he has not slept and has decided to treat that as irrelevant. Same jeans. Same flannel. Eyes red, posture steady.
“Echo’s later this morning,” he says. “Doctor says the valve is holding. She’ll transfer to Austin for monitoring if the day stays quiet.”
“That’s good.”
“It is.”
He sits beside me instead of across from me.
For a moment, we both watch the twins sleep.
“You stayed,” he says.
Not a question.
“I did.”
He nods like that settles something he had been quietly worried about. Then he pats my shoulder once, brief and solid, and does not explain it.
With Bill, that is the whole sentence.
Then he stands and goes back to the elevator.
Men in this family are impossible.
The twins wake in stages and fold themselves against me before I can think how to stop them. Emma first, silent and warm against my side. Then Lily, who claims she is not scared while gripping my sleeve hard enough to wrinkle the cuff.
I do not correct her.
I hold still.
Apparently that is my job this morning.
Ryan sees it when he comes back with the update: Susan is awake, annoyed, and therefore herself.
He stops just inside the waiting room.
For one second, his face is so open I almost look away.
Emma is tucked against me. Lily has her head on my arm. Bill is by the vending machine pretending to read the side of a granola bar like it might contain medical answers.
Ryan takes in the room.
Takes in me inside it.
I wait for him to joke or step away or put the moment somewhere safer.
Instead he sits with them, knee against mine, and lets the room hold without making anyone name it.
Ryan
My mother is arguing with a nurse about green Jell-O when I decide she is going to live.
“It tastes like cough syrup,” Susan says.
