33. Hudson
Alana’s surgeryhad taken three and a half hours, which were possibly the longest three and a half hours of Hudson’s life. She was going to be fine, he had chanted to himself, over and over and over as he paced the waiting room, probably causing everyone else in the room to experience the same sort of anxiety that he was facing.
He should have been there earlier. He shouldn’t have gone on the retreat in the first place, it wasn’t like he was able to make good art anymore if Alana wasn’t with him. Did it bode well for later?
It didn’t matter, because Alana had been on some operating table and a handful of medical professionals were taking out her insides with the same level of casualness as his mom deboning a chicken.
Did they even let her pick the music that they were playing in the operating room? They should have let her pick the music.
He hadn’t been able to take a regular breath until the doctor came out to tell him that everything went well and Alana was recuperating. His knees had buckled a little in relief at the information, but everything was still up in the air until he got to go into the recovery room and sit next to her, to hold her hand.
And have her, still loopy from medication, tell the whole room of nurses, and his mother, that she loved him.
Was that what it felt like when the world rearranged itself when you weren’t paying attention?
He sagged against the wall outside the recovery room, trying to wrap his head around what happened, and what the fuck he was going to do when Alana was fully awake. What if she didn’t remember any of it?
A pair of familiar sneakers stopped in front of him.
What was he gonna tell his mom?
“If you were any more tightly wound, favorite youngest son, you would turn into a yoyo.” She reached for his hand. “Let’s go sit down so nobody’s weirded out by the hovering outside a door.”
He silently followed her down the hall, to an alcove with a few chairs and a water cooler.
“Is this what it felt like all of the times I had surgery?” he asked, dropping into the chair next to hers.
“Like what?”
“Like my heart’s been ripped out of my chest and I’m just waiting for someone to give it back to me.”
“Oh, honey.” Hudson’s mom reached over to hug him. “Things are more complicated than you let on originally, aren’t they?”
Hudson sniffled and nodded into the crook of his mom’s neck. “How do you love someone and not spend the whole time worried they’re going to get hurt?”
“By feeling more than one feeling at a time,” his mom replied. “And eventually, and I know you don’t want to hear this now because it doesn’t seem helpful, but eventually, it gets easier.”
“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
Mrs. Miller laughed. “No. I’m saying it because I mean it. And when your dad comes, he’s gonna tell you the same thing.”
“Why’s Dad coming?”
“Because if Alana’s important enough to you that you’re pacing the waiting room like that, you shouldn’t have to do it by yourself. And babies who are being born don’t usually take people’s feelings into account.”
“I’ll be fine by myself.”
“Hudson Asher Miller. Just because you can be fine by yourself doesn’t mean you have to be.” Mrs. Miller kissed him on the forehead. “Jessie and Leah and Nathan all send their love and want someone to update the group chat once you’re ready.”
“You snitched on me in the group chat?”
“Only about Alana having surgery, because, at the time, that’s all I knew. Jessie is beside herself that she had to miss your show because of the movie she’s working on now, because she was supposed to be the designated Miller sibling who was there. And then Aleeza told her about you and Alana.” Mrs. Miller shrugged. “What she actually told her was that we were all pretty sure you and Alana were in a relationship, we just weren’t sure if you and Alana were aware of that. Apparently, you were.”
“Yeah.” Hudson twisted the wedding ring on his hand, realizing he had been wearing it all day. “About that.”
“I assume there were a few more details than what your wife told me just now.”
Having his mother call Alana his wife was a thrill he didn’t think he’d ever get to experience.
“A couple.” Hudson sighed. “I didn’t want to say anything. Because we had promised a year. And I didn’t want to have to explain that to you.”
“Did you not think we wouldn’t understand that? Hon, your dad would have sent her a fruit basket every week for eternity, if he knew that she was the reason you didn’t have to worry about insurance.”
“No, because I knew you would love her.”
His mom was quiet for a moment. “To have loved and lost, Hudson.”
“Is easier said than done.”
“Of course it is. Most platitudes and phrases are. That’s why we hate them.”
Hudson leaned against her shoulder, staring unseeing down the hall. “Mommy?”
“Hmm?”
“What do I do?”
“Same thing your dad always says.”
“Be brave and put it all on the field, and if you lose, you know you tried,” his dad said, walking up to them. “Why are we reciting my life mantras in a hospital hallway?”
Well, shit.
“Because feelings are always more complicated than your children remember,” his mom replied, smiling up at him.
Was that the way Alana looked at him?
Maybe.
In his wildest hopes.
“Oh, they’re my children today?” his dad rolled his eyes with a smile. “Shocking.” He patted Hudson’s arm. “How’s Alana?”
“Good. In the recovery room. They kicked me out so they can run a few more tests before transferring her to a room for her to stay in.”
“Oh, good. She’s a good kid, your roommate.”
“She is,” Hudson replied.
His mom’s phone buzzed. “And there goes my phone. Abe, did you bring coffee?”
“I brought the whole bakery.”
“I did so good marrying you.”
He grinned. “You did.” He turned to Hudson. “Let me go finish my unofficial UberEats shift for your mom and her coworkers, and I’ll come back in a bit. Keep me updated.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Hudson’s mom leaned over and kissed his head. “Update your siblings. They miss you the same way you miss them.”
Hudson sighed. “I know. I just…there was a lot that was happening. Still a lot that’s happening.”
“Life is never going to get less busy,” his mom said.
“I know.”
“It’ll be alright, Hudson. Love you.”
“Love you, too,” he said, and watched his parents walk down the hall, hand-in-hand.
He opened his cellphone, which he had been avoiding like the plague ever since Alana was wheeled in.
So. Many. Texts.
Texts from their friend group chat, texts from his immediate family chat, and texts from the cousin group chat.
He opened the cousin’s group chat, hoping to be distracted by whatever random shit they had going on, only to find out that Leah, that little snitch, had told them that Alana was having surgery, so Hudson was probably in need of some distractions while he waited.
The response had been immediate. Mo asked where the surgery was and if Hudson needed them to swing by with anything, Aleeza asked for Alana’s full Hebrew name so she could pray for her, Dina wanted to know where Alana would be recuperating and if she had any allergies so they could send over dinners for a couple of nights. Danny sent an audio message of his daughters singing a get-well song they had learned in preschool, and Avi responded with well-wishes and that he had a library of dumb memes to send Hudson if he needed to distract himself.
Hudson leaned against the wall for a minute, trying to process.
He was so lucky he had so many people who loved him.
Hudson took the time while waiting for Alana to really think. To sink into the possibility that maybe, if he asked, really asked, straight to the point, he would find out that maybe he wasn’t the only one in the marriage who had fallen in love.
And the possibility that all of what she had said were ramblings of someone high on one hell of a lot of drugs, and that none of it was actually true. He’d heard stories about the kinds of things people said in recovery, and a fair amount of it was more hallucinations than a mostly clear confession of their feelings.
When it was finally time for him to go into her new room, he was ready.
Well, as ready as he was ever going to be.
“You’re here,” she said as he walked in.
“Promised I would be,” he replied. “How are you feeling?”
“A little floaty, but good.” She picked at the hospital blanket. “Might be a little different when all the drugs finally wear off.”
“Makes sense. But we’ll deal with that when it comes.”
“We?”
“Of course.”
“Is it weird that every time a nurse comes in to check on me I want to ask them if they can just run a quick scan so they can show me the part where my uterus isn’t in my body anymore?”
“No,” Hudson replied, setting down the things he’d had his dad pick up on the windowsill. “Seems like a normal thing to me. You can ask them for a copy of the scans.”
“What if it didn’t work, though?”
Hudson crouched by the bed. “What do you mean?”
“What if I still get the cysts and stuff on other organs? What if everything still hurts once I recuperate?”
“Then we find you another doctor and another doctor until we find someone that can help you,” Hudson replied.
Alana sniffled. “Surgery is weird,” she said. “All my emotions feel sideways.”
“The doctor did say that it was likely for that to happen.”
“They said my feelings would suddenly be into cliff jumping?”
“Not necessarily those words exactly, but that there was a probability of you feeling your emotions more strongly while your body tries to regulate to its new normal.” Hudson shrugged. “Doctors love using that phrase after surgery.”
“What happened to the old normal?”
“It’s probably wherever your uterus is now.”
“What if I liked the old normal?” Alana asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I dunno, what if there were parts that I liked?”
“You can keep them. You can keep whatever parts you want.”
“Can you get me the eyeliner from my bag?” Alana asked.
Hudson blinked, a little confused at the conversation change. “I mean, sure, but do you really need to be putting on makeup now? You should be going back to sleep. Recovering.”
“Please.”
Hudson rifled through her bag until he found one. “You brought three?”
“Just pick one. It doesn’t matter which one.”
Hudson handed her the purple eyeliner pencil, which, if he wasn’t mistaken, was the original eyeliner of truth.
“Eyeliner of truth time,” Alana said, her voice wobbly. She clutched the eyeliner pencil. “If I give you the pencil, will you tell me what happened?”
Hudson sat down slowly on the edge of the bed. “Are you sure you want to do this, Alana?”
There was a long pause. “Yes.”
“Once I tell the truth, I can’t untell it.”
Alana swallowed hard. “I know. And I promise, I won’t get upset when you tell me the truth.”
Hudson stared at his hands for a few endless moments. “Okay,” he rasped, and held out his hand for the eyeliner. She handed it to him slowly, like it was something fragile.
“What did I tell your mom in the recovery room?” Alana asked. She wouldn’t look at him.
“Last chance, Alana. I’ll take it to the grave if you want me to.” He would. To keep her safe, to keep her happy, he would have taken every precious word that she had blurted out to his mom, and he would have kept it to himself, no matter the cost.
“I want you to tell me what I told her. I know I told her something. The nurses…I don’t think they’re looking at me funny, but also maybe they are.” She twisted the blanket through her hands. “I don’t remember everything.”
“What do you remember?”
“I woke up and I was wondering why the nurse had to slow dance to “Kiss Me Thru The Phone” in middle school, but then I was in a different room, and connected to a bunch of monitors, and one of the nurses told me that the surgery had gone well. I remember you were there. And your mom?”
“My mom came to check in after she finished delivering Matilda’s baby.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m an auntie for real now?”
“Yup. To a healthy baby girl named Dahlia Rose.”
“We’re middle name twins.” Alana smiled. “I’m so happy. And I’m so happy that it’s never, ever, ever going to be me doing that.”
“So am I.”
“Are you?”
“What?”
“Happy that I’m never going to have kids?”
“Of course I am,” Hudson said.
“You don’t think I’m less of a woman now?”
“God, no.” He crouched down next to her. “Where is this coming from?”
“I don’t know.” She sniffled, and Hudson passed her the box of tissues. “I feel like I have a vulnerability hangover, and I don’t know why.” She blew her nose, and finally looked up at him. “Did I say anything wrong, when I first woke up?”
“No,” he rushed to reassure her. “You didn’t do anything bad.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Can you tell me what I said? Because I’ve been stressing out about it a little. It’s bad enough to think about lying on the operating table, my body flapped open like a spatchcocked chicken.”
“If you want me to, sure.”
“I said something embarrassing, didn’t I.”
“No,” he said slowly. “It wasn’t embarrassing. I think it was honest.”
Alana rolled her eyes. “Sometimes honesty is embarrassing.”
Hudson laughed.
“What did I tell your mom? Because the nurse who was in here before said something about how I had been insisting on your mom coming to visit me, and that I was lucky to have her as a mother-in-law. So I must have told her something.”
“Most of everything,” Hudson said. “But not the sex parts. You told her she didn’t need to know those parts.”
“When you say everything, does that include my feelings?”
There was a part of him that wondered if he should lie to her, and tell her that she’d just told his mom the on paper reason for them getting married. Give her an out, just in case she hadn’t meant it.
“Hudson. You have the pencil.”
Fuck.
“It did,” he said.
There was silence. Well, as much silence as there could be in a hospital room.
He turned to her and held out the eyeliner pencil.
She took it, hand trembling. “Yes?”
“Did you mean it?” Hudson asked, his voice small.
Alana nodded. “I’m sorry. I know it’s probably going to make everything weird. We can pretend it was all drug-fueled.” She clutched the eyeliner pencil. “I was thinking of moving to Montana, after. But I can move now.”
“Why would you do that? Do you want to move to Montana?” They would make it work, whatever happened. Including her moving across the country, if that’s what she really wanted.
“I don’t want to make things weird.”
“Alana Rose,” Hudson said, taking the eyeliner pencil out of her hand. “Remember the part about how neither of us should be jumping to conclusions and making decisions for other people without consulting them first?”
“Right now, I’m waiting for the Earth to swallow me whole,” Alana said. “But yes. Vaguely.”
“Don’t you want to know how I feel?”
Alana grasped the edges of the hospital bed, gripping them until her knuckles turned white. “Okay,” she said.
Hudson gently lifted her face so he could look at her when he ripped the heart out of his body and placed it in her immaculately manicured hands.
“I love you,” he said. “I love you so much. If I could take the words that you said to my mom and tattoo them onto my heart and carry them around forever, I would. And if you really wanted to move to Montana, I would help you pack. I would also ask if there was room for me, too.”
Alana stared at him. “Are you for real?”
“I’m holding the eyeliner, aren’t I.”
“But…we’re supposed to get a divorce.”
“And if that’s really what you want, we can still do that,” Hudson said.
“Is that what you want?” Alana countered.
“I want to move into your room forever,” Hudson said. “I want to change my artist bio to say that I live in New York City with my wife. I want to grow old and wrinkled with you, and when people ask me how I met my wife, I want to come up with a carousel of increasingly more ridiculous lies that we make up for fun. I want Ben to take whatever draft of divorce paperwork he has, and I want to start a bonfire with it.”
Tears began to roll down Alana’s cheeks. “Can we make s’mores in the fire?” she asked.
“Yes,” Hudson said. “Of course we can.”
Alana leaned forward, and let Hudson envelop her. “I love you so much,” she whispered. “So much it scares me.”
“Does it make you feel better to know that it terrifies me to love someone as much as I love you?” Hudson asked.
“Yes,” Alana said. “Then we can be scared together.”
“We’ll take turns,” Hudson said. “We’re good at that.”
Alana sighed. “Deal. You can go first.”
“I had all those hours you were in surgery to be scared. It’s your turn.” Hudson dropped a kiss on her forehead. “We’ve got this, Lana. Promise.”