7. Seven
Seven
LENA
C atching sight of Ben’s tall, imposing frame outside the imaging department vanquishes my fears.
He’s okay. Not lying in a ditch somewhere (like I was).
Not trapped in a wood chipper. Not on a plane, extraditing himself to another country far away from me.
He hasn’t spontaneously combusted or been abducted by aliens.
My anxiety bitches may be troublemakers, but they have impressive imaginations.
Ben stands with Jack down the glowing florescent hallway, hands perched on his hips under his suit jacket, a stark reminder of my remaining worries. Where was he today?
He paces, running a hand through his hair at every turn—it’s another relief to see him nervous. Not that I know what he’s nervous about. Me being hurt? Or having to explain his absence?
When our eyes lock, I order myself to save my worries for later. He’s okay. I’m okay. We’re together.
Two long strides bring him to me, and I crumble into his arms, tucking my wounded arm between us like a broken wing.
His strong shoulder pillows me while he breathes into my hair.
Melting in his strength and familiarity, I bask in all the small, delicious things I love.
His deep, gentle voice, the tickle of stubble grazing my cheek, and the soft smell of Ivory soap along his neck.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “You needed me, and I wasn’t there. It won’t happen again.”
His brow knits with concern as he assesses me, hands gently gripping my cheeks as he takes in my head wound. His green eyes land on the nurse behind me. “Has she been tested for a traumatic brain injury? CT scan? MRI?”
“Ben, I’m okay,” I say, craving his attention. “I’m good—a mild headache and probably a broken wrist. I just had an x-ray.”
My personal Superman eyes my wrist like he has x-ray vision and can see the broken bones underneath the swollen, red exterior.
“Let’s get you back to your room. Dr. Langston will be in shortly.” The nurse scoots ahead, leading us down the hall.
Ben takes my side, latching my good hand around his arm for support. His six-foot-two frame, wide shoulders, and crisp suit look impressive, especially with his tie still taut to his neck.
I’m a complete mess beside him, but that’s our normal state. He’s so together while I’m a walking cartoon of a woman ramming her finger into a wall socket.
Our differences stand out worse today. Mud, blood, and purple icing stain my peasant’s blouse, jeans, and rubber boots. Not my best look. Certainly not with him trying out for the cover of GQ Solider beside me.
Ben doesn’t mind our disparity, though. His hand slips over mine, pressing me closer to him as we slowly follow the nurse.
“Looks like my shift’s over,” Jack grins, kicking himself off the wall as we approach. “Glad you’re okay, Lena.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
“Ben, keep us posted, eh? Take good care of our Lena.”
“Will do. Thanks.”
I turn to Ben when we’re alone in the curtained room again. “Where were you?”
He takes a breath, watching me. “What’s your pain level?”
“Moderate. Where were you?” There’s no tone in my voice. I’m calm. But he steps back and shoves his hands in his pockets like I’ve accused him of something.
He matches my even voice, but my defenses skyrocket when he says, “Let’s talk later when you’re up for it.”
“I’m up for it. It’s a simple question.”
His furrowed brow softens slightly. “Job interview.”
“A job interview?” I repeat with surprise and relief. But it quickly translates into sadness that he didn’t tell me.
He looks expectant of my typical response—an energetic, frustrating game of twenty questions to get answers that he has trouble volunteering in advance.
Ben’s minimal communication is endearing sometimes , but I’ve had to meld myself around it like batter in a baking tin.
I shield him from social encounters I know he doesn’t want.
Then, I carry the conversations that happen regardless.
Our private ones, too. All so he doesn’t have to.
That’s what couples do, right? Balance each other like a see-saw? I thought it made us a team.
But this news yanks me off the see-saw and kicks me while I’m down.
I am incredibly hurt. An interview means job hunting, which means leaving the job he’s loved for twelve years, and I knew nothing about it.
He’s making huge decisions without me. I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to tell your spouse such things…
before you actually do it. At least as a courtesy.
Another basic marriage rule snaps and lies broken between us.
So, tears replace the questions I should be asking like they’re flushing out the bothersome specks in our relationship.
“I’m your wife,” comes out instead. I sign the words, too, but it’s wonky one-handed.
Three words summarize my hurt feelings better than a long speech or playing twenty questions.
They get a reaction—he’s surprised, and his brow knits with what looks like regret.
He closes the gap, edging between my legs, which dangle sideways off the bed. He grazes my cheek with the outside of his hand, and more tears slip over his tenderness and concern. In our warm huddle, he whispers another apology before resting his forehead softly against mine.
“You scared me,” he says.
“You’re scaring me,” I say slowly as he watches my lips. “Why the secrecy?”
“Not secrecy. I delayed telling you. That’s all.”
“Why?”
“I needed to form my opinion before including yours,” he says. “And…”
Behind him, the curtain’s metal hooks drag along the upper bar, followed by a voice. “Okay, Lena, let’s talk about your x-ray… Oh, hello.”
Ben doesn’t hear Dr. Langston enter. Still cupping my cheek, he says, “Talking to you is difficult.”
Difficult? Another pain rips through me.
No one in the history of my life has said that before—it’s always the opposite.
Most days, I struggle to get out of personal conversations with customers.
Trisha and I have a code— don’t forget the sourdough —for her to break me free from long customer engagements (I don’t make anything with sourdough).
Hell, just last week, Alice Harvey revealed her trouble keeping things spicy in the bedroom with Jack.
People love talking to me. Too much. How can my husband make such a claim?
I redirect Ben’s intense stare with a forced smile over his shoulder. “Hey, Dr. Langston. This is my husband, Ben.”
“Ma’am. I mean, doctor.” He’s surprised and obviously flustered he didn’t hear her.
Dr. Langston gives him a quick once over, her pink lips rising as she does. “Either is fine. Or Elaine is good, too.”
Shit. I immediately think of a sex room. Damn it, Cherry.
My six-foot-two husband presents well, especially in a suit.
It accentuates his broad shoulders and wraps his muscular arms, highlighting them.
The jagged four-inch scar stretching from his left brow to his ear gives him a rugged look, especially when combined with his near-always stoicism.
Dot calls him a cyborg, and he definitely gives off a robotic vibe.
What he lacks in friendly humanness, he makes up for in stature and sincerity.
Given Dr. Langston’s coy smile, she thinks so, too. I wish the girls were here to see this. No game, my ass.
“What’s the prognosis?” Ben asks, clearly missing her coyness.
She prompts her tablet. “Two impact injuries. Mild concussion—no indication of severe trauma.” She points to my illuminated bones. “Two wrist fractures—”
“Intra or extra-articular?” Ben asks like he’s a fellow doctor.
“Extra-articular, not touching the joint.” She sounds surprised. “You know your fractures.”
He shrugs indifferently and doesn’t explain. The injuries he sustained as a soldier and the ones he sees every day as a police officer managing accident scenes give him a decent level of medical knowledge.
“Distal radius and distal ulna,” she says, pointing them out.
She unwraps a splint from under her arm and carefully sets my hand, making me cringe and tear up as the pain from moving it claws me.
The Velcro and black brace reaches around my thumb and stretches to my elbow.
She gently encloses it, but it still hurts like hell.
She attaches a fabric sheath around my shoulder to hold the splint against my chest.
“When will I be able to move my hand again?” I ask, trying to keep my tears at bay. “And work?”
“Two months,” they say together.
“Maybe longer.” She side-eyes Ben like he’s a man-sandwich.
“You’ll experience pain, bruising, and swelling.
The splint will limit movement but adjust as needed.
We need the swelling to go down before putting on your cast—that’ll happen next week, and it’ll be on for six.
You may need physical therapy. What work do you do? ”
I consider puffing up my resume for her. But all that comes out is a weak, “I’m a baker.”
“Take a leave of absence… unless you can bake one-handed.”
My eyes narrow. I can bake one-handed. Can’t I?
“Understood,” Ben says. “Pain medications?”
They review my pain management schedule and care like they’re the adults here.
That fits since a pained haze of anxiety forces me to zone out.
How can I take a leave of absence at my business?
I brainstorm my simplest recipes and how I might finagle them, barely using my left hand.
Dumping my bag, I find my black notebook and awkwardly flip through the worn, loose pages until I come to tomorrow’s orders and events.
It’s a light Friday, thank God. Two cake orders and two groups are scheduled—a dog training class and a trauma support group.
It won’t be easy, but I’ll find a way to manage. I always do.
But my lofty plans disintegrate as I struggle to return my notebook to my bag. Fucking hell, how will I do this? Just making the lunch boxes feels like a Herculean feat. So many people are counting on me—how could I let this happen?
Worse, Ben finds me “difficult” to talk to? Who cares about an inoperable left hand or the work catastrophe it’ll cause when my husband can’t talk to me?
Millie Davis just went through a rocky divorce—hence, the boozy girls’ night cupcakes slathered inside the Pilot.
She’d focused so entirely on her three young boys that she hadn’t noticed her husband drifting away from her.
Over macadamia nut cookies at the café, she told me they hadn’t had sex in a year.
An entire year!
“Didn’t you miss it?” I asked when she overshared. “The sex? The closeness?”
“I was too busy to miss it,” she admitted regretfully. “By the time I realized something was wrong, he’d already fallen for someone else.”
My eyes close as my thoughts spin into an anxiety tornado. I can’t let that happen to us. I can’t make fifty to seventy-five sandwiches one-handed. I can’t make myself less difficult, whatever that means, or make Ben talk to me. I can’t —
“Lena.” Ben’s voice stills my mental storm.
I open my eyes to find him staring at me.
“Breathe.” His hand latches over my good one—I hadn’t realized it was shaking or that my breathing had become hurried. I flush with panic and embarrassment as Dr. Langston looks on, assessing me.
“Are you alright, Lena?” she asks.
I nod, taking deep breaths in and out, slowing myself down, and feeling even more disappointed. The panic I’ve battled all day has finally won.
Ben presses my good hand to his chest under his tie. He holds it there flat so that I feel the gentle rise and fall of his breathing. He glances over his shoulder at Dr. Langston. “She’s fine. Are we done?”
“The nurse will be by with your follow-up information and paperwork.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Ben says as she leaves. The room quiets again. “Focus on me. Everything’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t. Nothing’s okay if we’re not okay.”
His brow knits. “We’re fine. Just breathe.”
I match his breathing—slow, steady, and calm. Just like him. Soon, I no longer need to tell myself to do it.
“Been a long time.” He sounds proud. Going from a panic attack every few days to every few years makes me proud, too. But it stings, resetting the sign in my head— Days Without a Panic Attack, 0.
My therapist, Dr. Reese, would say I’m being hard on myself. That’s a problem for me and probably most women who give a shit about anything. Pushing too hard. Thinking too much. Trying to please everyone.
That’s not living. That’s doing. Look at the facts, she’d say. Rough morning. Car accident. A long recovery ahead. And sudden uncertainty. Give yourself a break.
Ben often says something similar when I get like this, especially when I have so much to do that I don’t know where to start. “What’s most important?” he usually asks, clearing my focus. Right now, it’s this—us, together.
“It’s been sneaking up on me all day, even before the accident,” I admit, still breathless. “It’s a wonder I lasted this long.”
“Tell me about it,” he urges. “Tell me everything.”
“You first, when we get out of here. Please.”
“Yes. Understood.”
My hand slips down his chest, bringing me back to this morning when I only wanted to stay tucked against him in bed, safe, warm, and uncomplicated. “Tell me you love me, Ben.”
His left brow perks in surprise at my request. But the nurse comes in before he gets a chance to say it.