Page 31 of Fox
“You did,” she agrees enthusiastically, her face mutinous.
Dina is petite. Five feet nothing. She has big, dark eyes, thanks to her Persian heritage, and a slight accent.
“I love her,” I confess.
She rolls her eyes, but they’re soft. She didn’t expect me to say that. I don’t blame her. I didn’t expect me to say it either.
“Then you should’ve told her.” She jabs a finger into my chest. “If she…if she…then the last thing that happened to her was you hurting her.”
She can’t say it, can’t say that if Lucy dies, the last days of her life were made miserable because of me, my insecurities, my lack of knowledge of myself.
“She won’t…she’ll wake up, and we’ll go home.” My breath hitches. “We’re going to live happily ever fucking after,” I tell her, but I’m saying those words to myself, constantly as well, because I’m afraid.
“Let’s hope she forgives you for being a complete douche,” Dina mutters with a small sprinkle of compassion.
She’s pissed at me, but she brings me food from the diner. It’s not as good as Lucy’s cooking, but it’s not bad either.
They keep my wife in a medically induced coma for four days, and trust me when I say they do it for medical reasons, because having me sitting in that waiting room for twenty-three hours a day, except for the one hour I go home to take a shower, is not something anyone in the hospital wants.
I’m a pain in everybody’s ass, including mine.
I have memorized the schedules of the nurses on the ICU rotation and have claimed by squatter’s rights the uncomfortable chair I park my ass on.
I’m allowed into the ICU for fifteen minutes twice a day, and I all but bring the place down when they’re even five seconds late. That’s my time with Lucy. My time to hold her hand. See that bruise on her face change colors. Tell her I love her. Ask her, beg her to get better, to wake up.
“Let’s go,” Dr. Reyes instructs at seven fifteen on the fourth morning.
I’m just back from the house. I have my laptop with me now, so I can do some work—and spend ridiculous amounts of time doing searches on what I know about Lucy’s condition.
I shove the laptop into my bag and stand. “Is she awake? How is she?”
Dr. Reyes waves a hand, gesturing me to haul ass, which I do.
I sit next to her as they begin the process of walking back the sedation.
I see it happen, the slow, incremental return of my wife from wherever they sent her. It’s like watching a tide come in, like watching a light source find its voltage.
It takes three hours.
First her hands—a movement, small, the fingers of her right hand flex once against mine.
Then her breathing changes, deepens, takes on the quality of someone sleeping, not comatose.
Then her face, the small muscular adjustments of consciousness reasserting itself.
Dr. Reyes speaks to her the whole time in a low, steady voice.
“Lucy, you’re in the hospital; you were in an accident; you’re safe now.”
I sit in my chair with one hand on my knee, the other on Lucy’s right wrist, feeling her pulse.
When Dr. Reyes nods at me, I talk to Lucy. “Hey, sweetheart. I’m here. You’re going to be just fine.”
Just wake up, sweetheart.
Please wake up.
Please don’t die.
