Chapter 33 – James
JAMES
My heart hammers in my chest as Kostos speeds down the village street toward the private clinic.
After Maura passed out, he led the way while I carried her down the path.
He insisted on driving me to the clinic so I could sit in the back with her and monitor her.
I worried he’d drive too slowly, but thankfully, he speeds like the devil is chasing us.
Fuck, why did I insist on this stupid hike? I should've canceled the moment Maura hesitated. I know she doesn't take care of herself, so it's my goddamn job to do it for her. And I failed.
Maura lies slumped against me in the backseat, her already-pale skin a sickly greenish white.
My fingers press against the pulse point on her neck.
Her heartbeat feels rapid and erratic, but at least it’s still beating.
“Maura,” I mutter for what feels like the hundredth time. “Talk to me. Wake up.”
Her eyelids don’t open, and she doesn’t respond. My chest feels like it’s constrained by a gigantic rubber band. Fuck, I don’t know what I’ll do if something happens to her.
The car skids to a stop right in front of the clinic. Across the street, a pair of elderly Greek women stare at us disapprovingly. Their judgmental expressions stop the second I emerge from the backseat, my unconscious wife in my arms.
“I will come with you,” Kostos says, jumping out of the front seat. “In case you need a translator.”
“You've done more than enough. I contacted the clinic before we arrived on the island, and I know they have English-speaking staff.” At least I did that much. At least I did the bare minimum to look out for Maura’s safety.
He nods. “Then call me when you know that she’s well.”
I spare a second to give him a thankful nod before dashing inside the clinic. Inside, the waiting room is cool and clean, with slightly outdated wallpaper. I just hope their equipment is more updated than their decor. Thankfully, the waiting room is empty.
Behind the reception desk, a nurse with bright-red dyed hair looks at me with widened eyes.
“My wife passed out on a hike,” I say before she can greet me in Greek. “Her heartbeat’s erratic and she’s unresponsive. We need help.”
“Come with me,” she says quickly, opening the door that leads back into the clinic.
She barks out a few words in Greek, summoning two other nurses and a man in a white coat—a doctor, I assume.
One of the nurses gestures for me to follow him into a nearby room and lie Maura out on a table.
The doctor leans down to check Maura’s airway while the male nurse starts hooking her up to the monitor.
I suck in a breath, but I can’t seem to get enough oxygen. Gasping for breath, I claw at the buttons of my shirt, trying to make space for my lungs. It’s too tight, and the air here is too damn thin.
A bitter metallic taste spreads over my tongue as I watch them fit an oxygen mask over Maura’s mouth.
Can she breathe on her own? I can’t make out the rise and fall of her chest from this far away.
I take a step toward her, then stop. I can’t get in the doctors’ way.
If I distract them—if I make them miss a step—if I fucking ruin this—
The redheaded nurse taps my arm and gestures out into the hallway. “Come. I need you to answer some questions.”
I shake my head. “No. I won’t leave my wife.”
“We’ll let you back in once she’s stable. For now, I need all the information you can give me.”
I glance back at Maura, still lying unresponsive on the table.
The doctor and nurses move quickly and reassuringly, chatting quietly in Greek.
Even though every instinct demands that I stay at her side, I know the nurse is right.
I’ll only get in their way. Still, my feet feel like heavy lead as I move. Every step away from her aches.
In the air-conditioned hallway, my sweat from the hike makes my skin clammy. Dust covers my skin and clothing in a thin sheen. I couldn’t feel more out of place in the sterile clinic.
The nurse opens a laptop, which she perches on a tall table. Her scrubs are patterned with little green leaves, and my eyes focus on the pattern. “What’s your wife’s name?” she asks.
“Maura Keller.” I spell it for her.
“Date of birth?”
My mind scrambles to come up with the date, which I’ve only heard a few times. “February 20.” Fuck, I can’t remember the year, and I’m too frantic to do the math. “She’s 26.”
The nurse’s fingers move quickly across the keyboard. “Does she have any existing conditions?”
I blink. “I-I don’t think so. Not that I know of.”
She nods and types something. “Is she taking any medications?”
I run a hand through my hair. Shit, I should know this. I think I spotted a few pill bottles in Maura’s bathroom back in Toronto, but I didn’t look too closely. At the time, it seemed nosy and intrusive. It wasn’t my business if she took any medications. Now, I feel like a complete idiot.
The nurse stares at me with narrowed eyes. I’m sure she’s wondering what kind of husband doesn’t know his own wife’s medical history. She must think I’m a cold, heartless, inconsiderate asshole.
She’d be right about that.
“I don’t know,” I confess. “I know she has a surgical scar on her chest. She takes some pills, but I don’t know what they are.”
The nurse nods. “Fine. Let me see if I can access her medical records. Where are you from?”
“Toronto, in Canada.”
She starts typing again, her fingers moving at an astonishing speed.
I wonder vaguely if she took typing lessons.
Fuck, my mind can’t seem to focus. I tap my foot on the floor to release the frantic energy that’s started flowing through my limbs.
I wish I could pace the hallway, or better yet, break into a run.
I need movement, motion, action. The walls are too clean and white, like the walls in my apartment.
The walls before Maura hung paintings on them.
God, I don’t even feel like myself. Even in a crisis, I’ve always been able to gather myself and act rationally.
Then again, I’ve never had to wait breathlessly for answers from doctors.
After the accident, my parents were horribly, undeniably, mercifully dead before I could rush to a hospital.
Then, there were bodies to identify, funerals to arrange, plans to make.
Concrete tasks I could write on a list. Not this panicked limbo, this waiting.
The nurse asks me a few more questions between typing bursts, and I give our address and my social insurance number. Finally, she smiles, apparently successful.
“I’ll get this information to the doctor. Please, go back to the waiting room until we call you.”
I glance back at Maura’s room. The wooden door has no window, no way for me to glance in and check on her.
I swallow, my mouth feeling bone dry. In there, my wife is lying flat on a slab while gloved hands and machines try to coax life back into her.
The sudden, ghastly image of my mother’s still body flashes into my mind.
She wasn’t breathing. Her entire body was waxy and still.
That can’t be Maura. An hour ago, my wife was sweaty, flushed, smiling. It can’t all be over. It just can’t be.
“I need to see her,” I rasp.
The nurse shakes her head. “The doctors need space to do their job.”
“I won’t bother them.” I need to look at Maura’s chest and see if it’s rising. I need to make sure she’s not still. I need to know it’s not all ruined, all my fault, all—
A cold cylinder presses into my hand. It’s the nurse, handing me a thin paper cup of water. Automatically, I sip it. The cool liquid slides down my throat, anchoring me. I blink down at the nurse in her green-leafed scrubs.
“You need to sit down,” she orders, not unkindly. “You’re going to collapse if you don’t take a minute to drink and catch your breath. The last thing we need is both of you unconscious.”
Some small, rational part of me understands. Waiting here in this white hallway isn’t the answer. “And you’ll get me if anything goes wrong with Maura?” I ask.
“I promise.”
I walk back to the waiting room in a daze, barely aware of where I am. I startle when I see Kostos sitting in a chair, two coffees in hand.
“I could not leave,” he says simply. “You are a stranger here. I will stay until she is awake.”
A pang of wistfulness stabs through me. It’s such a fatherly gesture, caring and supportive. I’ve lived a decade without my own father now, and there hasn’t been another time that someone stepped up to take on that role.
I suppose Jack Archer has tried in his own way. He’s not exactly a warm man; he’s had enough trouble connecting with his own son, even before he found out about Ryan dating Pippa.
As I take the coffee from Kostos, there’s no way I could put my gratitude into words. It feels altogether bigger than the “thank you” I give him.
I scroll mindlessly through my phone, re-reading the bombardment of texts the guys sent earlier.
I didn't respond to any of it. What would I even say?
We sit quietly together, Kostos quickly becomes absorbed in a soccer game playing on a TV in the corner, despite the fact that it seems to have been played in the late ‘90s. I simply stare off into space. I have no desire to check my work emails, even though I certainly should. Sequel doesn’t feel important anymore.
The only person that fucking matters is down a hallway I can’t enter.
I fucked up when I let Maura into my life.
I should have known my colorful, chaotic wife wouldn’t be constrained by black-and-white contracts and clauses.
She wormed her way into my heart before I knew she was doing it.
It’s too late to regret it now, now that I’m finally ready to admit that I’m in love with her.