Chapter 30
CHAPTER 30
T he end of my shift can’t come fast enough. I’m still laughing at the selfie Marcus sent me of his shocked face after I sent him a text during my break, detailing the dream I had the night before. It had nothing to do with restocking canned beans, and the prospect of going home has my head floating far, far away from aisle eight. Only forty-three minutes until?—
“Peggy?”
I glance up at my manager whose penciled-in brows are furrowed. Sylvia hesitates as if she’s not sure how to say what she’s about to say, and dread snakes in my stomach. “There’s someone on the phone. Your neighbor, I think? Says it’s urgent. There’s been an accident of some kind. With Darius.”
I don’t hear anything else as I run to the break room and grab the phone where it’s sitting upside down on a folding table. “Hello?”
“Peggy, it’s Amy.” Amy. Not neighbor—apartment manager.
My mouth goes dry as she talks, my mind sorting information into any place that means Marcus isn’t really at the hospital because he was shot.
Shot. Like…with a gun. That’s what she said, but my brain rejects it, and my body takes over. Hanging up, I grab my coat and bag and rush from the break room, through the store, and out the front sliding doors. Silvie is on my heels, asking me if everything is okay, but I just shake my head and keep running until I reach the curb. I have no car, no way to get to the hospital except to keep running.
I take off, but Silvie calls my name, her voice a ripple on the air that reaches me. I slow, and her hand grabs my elbow. “Peggy, stop—I’ll take you. Where is?—”
“Deaconess Midtown Hospital,” I choke, and she nods and puts her arm around me, steering me toward her car at the very far end of the parking lot.
My legs can’t feel anything as I slide into the passenger seat. My mind spins, trying to gain traction while Silvie pulls into traffic, but I’m shaking too hard, my coat and bag still gripped in my hand. Silvie doesn’t say anything until she pulls up to the emergency room doors. “Do you want me to go in with you?”
I shake my head and thank her, and then I’m hurling myself through sliding doors, scanning the ER waiting room. Police officers are talking to a paramedic, a doctor, a few nurses. I step to a desk in the center. “Marcus Miller?” I blurt, my voice loud, uncontrolled, and edged with panic.
The woman turns to her computer, types, and looks up. “We don’t have a Marcus Miller here. Maybe at Gateway?”
Fear and realization hit me at the same time, and I shake my head. “Sorry. I…I’m looking for Darius Bromley.”
She studies my face. “May I ask your relation?”
“His wife.”
She blinks at me, like she’s trying to think of words. “Your name?”
“Peggy Bromley.”
“Okay, then…” She types again. “Looks like he was just brought in about thirty minutes ago, so let me look up his status.” Her fingers fly across the keyboard, the sound like gunfire against my skull. “Looks like he’s in ER room three. Let me make some phone calls. Have a seat over there, and I’ll let you know when you can go back.”
“Is he okay?”
“I don’t have any other information, I’m sorry. But I promise I’ll let you know what I find out. Just take a seat. Won’t be long.”
I hesitate, then find the chair closest to the desk and perch on the edge of it, watching everything around me. I cling to my coat and bag, hanging onto something to get rid of this feeling that I’m dangling over the edge of something horrible. Police talk to each other, filling out forms. Are they here because of what happened to Marcus? A doctor and two nurses walk through the emergency room doors together, and I want to follow them, find Marcus.
If I don’t get a grip on this moment, I’ll plummet into the darkness below me. So I stand and pace the waiting room, my eyes jumping around every corner, trying to collect information, but the woman behind the desk calls my name, derailing my thought.
“You’re free to go back. Room number three. I’ll buzz you in.” She clicks a button, and I toss a breathless “Thank you” to her as I hurry through the opening doors and locate the flimsy curtain of Room 3. It waves with movement from the other side.
“Marcus?” I dash around the curtain, stopping short when I almost run into two nurses working on an IV drip attached to his arm and two officers standing by his bed. The male officer turns, but I rush to Marcus, my frantic eyes on his bloody, swollen face. “Are you okay?”
He starts to say something, but the officer speaks over him. “Thank you for your statement, Mr. Bromley. We’ll do our best and keep you informed.”
“Thanks,” Marcus says, his voice crackly and hoarse.
When the officers leave, I turn to Marcus, my breath catching in a hard ball in my chest. “What happened?”
Before he can respond, a doctor breezes through the curtain into the room. “Looks like we’re cleared for surgery, Mr. Bromley.”
My heart jolts, and I grip the bed railing as the doctor steps toward me, hand extended. “I’m Doctor Faulk.”
“Peggy,” I say, shaking his hand.
“My wife,” Marcus adds, and the doctor nods.
“Nice to meet you, Peggy. I’ll give you two the overview.” He studies a computer screen. “Your shoulder is fine. It was dislocated, but we put it back where it belongs, and there’s no lasting damage there. As for your leg, looks like the bullet exited but fractured the tibia. I’ve called in an orthopedic surgeon, and he’ll fix the bone and remove any fragments. Seems pretty straightforward, so the good news is, surgery shouldn’t take too long. Maybe two hours at most. The surgeon’s on his way now, so they’ll get you prepped.” He motions to the two nurses working in the corner, pulling out drawers and packages. “You’re welcome to stay until they take him to the O.R.,” he says to me. After giving a few instructions to the nurses, Dr. Faulk leaves the room. My fingers lace through Marcus’s, and I run my other hand over the bruises on his knuckles while a nurse on the other side of his bed adjusts his IV.
When the nurses leave, I turn to him. “What happened?”
“Nick.” Marcus’s eyes dart to the curtain, away from mine. “He showed up at the apartment. Told him to leave, he shot me. Now I’m here.” He closes his eyes.
“Are you in pain?” I whisper, my voice still catching up to the moment.
“They gave me something, and I feel okay right now. Pretty good, actually.”
“What did he want?” I press my lips together and wait to hear what I’ve wondered for months.
Marcus’s eyes move to the curtain again. The wall. The blanket covering his legs. “Diamonds.”
My throat tightens, but I squeeze out the words, my fingers on my neck. “He said that?”
“He said he wants what you stole from him. So yeah…basically. Right before he shot me.”
Dr. Faulk comes back in with two different nurses. “You ready? They’ll take you to the O.R., and you’ll be back in no time with your leg as good as new.” One of the nurses smiles and steps past me to wheel the bed from the room. I squeeze Marcus’s hand before he slides through the curtains and away from me.
I follow a nurse to the waiting room where I stare out the window at the fake potted plants lining the sidewalk. If they can’t keep real plants alive, why are they a hospital? Plants should be easy compared to people.
I close my eyes and breathe in through my nose while my mind twists around Marcus’s words until it’s all too tangled and heavy, and I drop into a chair. I get lost in the swirls in the carpet, and my mind does the same, collecting questions and fears. How did Nick find us? We were careful. And why the diamonds? Is that all he’s wanted this whole time? It doesn’t make any sense. He has cases of diamonds—a warehouse of expensive things Why couldn’t he leave us alone? Why couldn’t he move on, let me live my life that I so obviously didn’t want with him?
Anger stretches against my chest, tightening my throat, and tears spill, hot as they streak down my cheeks. This has gone too far. It went too far long ago, but I didn’t stop it and look what happened. If I’d known all he wants is the diamonds, I would have given them back forever ago. I’ll do it now, if he’ll just leave us alone. But he won’t. He’ll find ways to punish me, even if he gets what he wants. He’ll never be satisfied. It’s only a matter of time before he’s back, and what will he do then? I thought the diamonds were my escape route. But Marcus is in surgery right now because of them. And me. He’s far from home because of me. He lost everything because of me. He could have died because of me.
My mind is hazy and sluggish when a doctor strides toward me almost two and a half hours later to tell me the surgery went very well, and that Marcus will be in a brace for a few months. He won’t be running on it anytime soon, but it will heal, and he’ll be as good as before. The doctor tells me he was lucky. The doctor doesn’t know anything.
He leads me down another echoey, white hallway to Marcus’s recovery room, telling me that he’ll have to spend one night here for observation, and I’m welcome to stay in the room with him.
Marcus is unconscious when I step through the door behind the doctor, who checks a chart, then turns to me. “Pull up a chair and get comfortable. He’ll be groggy for a while. And you never know what he might say as he comes out of anesthesia.” He smiles, pats me on the shoulder, and disappears through the door.
I pull a chair to the side of Marcus’s bed and grab his hand.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, fierce, like if I push the words out hard enough, they’ll penetrate his anesthesia fog. “I’m so sorry, Marcus.”
I rest my head on his arm and let the tears puddle on his skin. Everything has changed again, but I don’t feel like he’s lucky; the doctor had no idea what he was saying. Marcus came face to face with Nick and barely escaped. He’s unconscious in a hospital bed and will wake to find that he can’t run, much less walk for who knows how long. He goes on runs every day, even in the snow, but now he can’t. He can’t go to work. He can’t do anything but sit and think about how Nick has ruined everything all over again. How I’ve ruined it all because I ignored it. And he’ll have plenty of time to wonder what might happen next if he stays with me.
Marcus stirs, and I lift my head as his eyes flutter open. They move around the room, land on me, and stay on my face, trying to focus. “Did you see that horse? He put his nose in my crotch because I’m wearing this dress.” Marcus’s hands fumble with his gown as he laughs, sloppy and delirious.
I smile. “I didn’t see it.”
“Well…you’re really small, and he was huge, so I’m not surprised.” His bleary eyes flick to me and he frowns, “What did they do with my underwear? Did you take them? Because I don’t think they’ll fit you. But I don’t want to wear this dress anymore. Johnny’ll never let it die.”
I try to hide a laugh, and the nurse who steps into the room smiles at me.
“The horse thing is a new one,” she says, patting his arm. “Your underwear’s safe and sound.”
“Oh, okay.” Marcus relaxes into his pillow. “Okay. Good. I just don’t want to wear this dress anymore.” His eyes drift closed, his breathing slowing. A few minutes later, they pop open again, scanning the room before stopping on me. He studies me, his eyes more focused this time. “Hey.” His voice is husky, his words more solid.
“Hi,” I whisper.
He clears his throat. “I’m still in the hospital?”
“Yeah. Overnight.”
He nods, closing his eyes again. “Why you so far away?”
“I’m just letting you wake up. A horse was chasing you, so I figured you might be kind of tired.”
He frowns. “A horse?”
I smile and grab his hand again. “Just something you said when the anesthesia was wearing off. How are you feeling?”
“Tired. But happy I woke up to your face. I missed it. Wanna join me in this hydraulic bed?”
I crawl in next to him, gentle to not jostle him as I lay my head on his chest. Tears escape, and I’m grateful he can’t see my face. He’s silent and I wonder if he’s thinking about how none of this would have happened if he hadn’t met me. Then he sighs, his body relaxes, and his breathing slows and steadies, leaving me to wonder alone.