Chapter 7
seven
Present Day
What was I thinking?
Hope lies in the hospital bed with one arm outside the blanket, tape fixed to the back of her hand. Her dark hair is fanned over the pillow in loose, tangled strands. A few hours ago she held her guitar in her hands and transfixed the entire crowd at the market.
Now fluorescent light drains the color from her skin and a monitor keeps time in soft electronic blips from somewhere near her shoulder.
I sit beside her with my fingers laced through hers and try not to picture how close this came to going worse.
“Her name is Hope Kristiansen. She’s my wife.”
The words ring in my head.
I didn’t plan this. Didn’t weigh options or stop to think through consequences.
The words came out because she was on the pavement fighting to send help away and all I could hear under her panic was money.
Cost. Bills. Fear big enough to make her choose bleeding on a sidewalk over getting into an ambulance.
So I lied.
One lie compounded into another. Once I started, stopping would have left Hope alone and helpless with no one speaking on her behalf.
So fucking presumptuous.
The EMTs moved too fast to question me. At the hospital, a nurse outside the exam room tried to stop me with a flat, practiced “family only,” and I heard myself say husband again without any stumble at all. She looked at Hope, looked at me, and stepped aside.
Now I’m in the room, hours later, beside her holding her hand as if letting go would count as walking away from something I started.
My heart hasn’t stopped thundering once.
I’m in deep, deep shit.
Every time a nurse comes in, I expect the next question to be the one I can’t answer. Insurance card. Date of marriage. Emergency contact details. Something simple. Something normal. Something a real husband would know without thinking.
She has no idea who I am and I don’t know much about her either.
One thing I do know is she certainly isn’t on my insurance.
I stare at the floor between my shoes and run through possibilities. None of them good. At some point paperwork will show up. Forms will need signatures. Someone in billing will start asking real questions instead of medical ones. The longer I sit here, the heavier the lie gets.
Hope stirs once, settles again. I look over at her angelic face.
Nothing but a shift in her deep sleep.
Leaning back in the chair, I scrub a hand over my face. My phone burns against my thigh. I’ve held off calling my folks for now. Admitting what I’ve done makes it real. The problem is, I’m out of time and out of ideas.
When her care team comes in to check vitals and talk quietly near the foot of the bed, I step into the hallway and call Jamie.
He answers with, “If this is about a deploy, I quit.”
“I need help.” I cup my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound.
The joke drops out of his voice. “What happened?”
I tell him. Talking to Hope at the Market. The guy following her. The assault. Ambulance. My husband lie. Now, the hospital room and why I’m still here.
I can’t leave her alone when I promised everything will be alright.
He lets out a long breath when I finish.
“Okay,” he says. “First, you did the right thing.”
“I committed insurance fraud in an ambulance for a woman I’ve said less than fifty words to,” I scoff. “Hardly admirable.”
He assures me, “No, you got her treated.”
“True,” I sigh. “I can’t argue with you there.”
“Good. Then move to step two.”
I press my shoulder against the wall outside her room. “Which is?”
“Call HR. Right now,” Jamie urges. “Hungry Llama might have options. Emergency dependent enrollment. Domestic partner paperwork. Some weird loophole none of us knows exists. You need a real adult with access to benefits.”
I close my eyes for a second. Hungry Llama. Work. Insurance. A real plan.
The words line up in a way my own thoughts haven’t managed to since I saw her on the ground.
“She told me to send the ambulance away,” I recollect. “She kept talking about money. I didn’t have much time to think.”
“No insurance?”
“Doesn’t seem like it. She was terrified of the hospital bill.” I peer at her through the window of the door to her room. “Shit. I’ve got myself in a real mess.”
“Stop sitting there spiraling and start making calls,” he demands. “You’ve got HR, legal, payroll, half a dozen people whose whole job is knowing how this stuff works.”
He’s right. I hate how much he’s right.
“Stay put at the hospital,” he continues. “I’ll text Daniel too. We’ll start digging from our side. There has to be some route in.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Go do the boring paperwork hero stuff.”
We end the call and I stand there for a second, staring at the muted television mounted above the waiting room chairs across the hall. Some game show runs with captions on and no sound. People on the screen move their mouths and wave their hands like they’re performing for strangers.
I call HR. An answering service picks up. Then a transfer. Finally, a woman named Lexie with a calm voice and no patience for rambling asks me, very directly, what happened and what I need.
For the first time all day, I tell the story in order.
By the time I finish, I have three notes in my phone, two forms being emailed to me, and a possible path that sounds insane when she explains it and even more insane when I repeat it back.
It isn’t elegant or clean. It depends on timing, signatures, a benefits manager willing to classify one emergency as an exception worth pushing through to the executive committee.
It also might work.
When I return to Hope’s room, my pulse has dropped from full panic to something I can manage.
She’s still asleep. I take my chair again and reach for her hand. Her fingers are cooler than before. I rub my thumb lightly across her knuckles without thinking.
A nurse comes in, checks the monitor, glances at me, glances at our hands. Leaves.
No one at the hospital seems to question our relationship, which should make this lie easier.
Instead it makes me more aware of the next problems I’ll need to solve. Telling my parents. Facing Hope when she wakes up. I could barely muster up the courage to talk to her before.
How will I explain this to her now?
An hour later my neck aches from the chair and the room has dimmed at the edges. I’m fighting sleep when Hope moves. It’s small at first, a shift under the blanket.
Her eyes open.
They pass over the ceiling, the machine, finally landing on me for a second before slipping again.
I lean forward, slowly. “Hey.”
Her gaze finds me again. Holds a little longer this time.
“You’re in the hospital,” I whisper. “You’re gonna be okay.”
Her mouth opens. No sound. She swallows and tries again. “You’re…here?”
“Yeah.” I take a breath. “I told them I was your husband.”
The words hover.
Her brow tightens.
“I needed them to make sure you were taken care of,” I add. “You didn’t want the ambulance. You kept talking about money.”
She watches me, trying to follow.
“I’m Alek,” I introduce myself for the second time today. “I’ve seen you play at the Market for weeks.”
A flicker crosses her face. Not quite recognition. More like vague understanding.
“I was leaving after your set,” I go on. “Saw a guy follow you down toward the waterfront. He was creepy so I followed both of you. He attacked you and ran before I caught up.”
Her eyes sharpen for a moment.
“I called it in.” I heave out a breath. “Now we’re here.”
Silence. Except for the machine keeping a steady rhythm.
“You don’t…know me,” she ekes out.
“No.”
Another pause. Her focus wavers, drifts past me, returns.
“Why?” Her question comes out skeptically.
I decide to keep it simple. “Because you needed someone there.”
She breathes out, slow. “This could…be bad.”
“I’ll deal with it,” I promise.
Her eyes stay on mine a second longer. Then her hand shifts against the blanket slowly. It takes all her effort.
I don’t move.
After a second, her fingers brush mine. I turn my hand enough so she can take it if she wants.
She does.
A day ago I couldn’t make myself say hello to her at a bar. Now I’m sitting in a hospital room, committed to an impossible insurance fix, holding the hand of a woman who is still a stranger.
I look at her, the tape on her wrist, the mess of her hair against the pillow, quiet trust sitting between us in spite of every insane part of this situation.
How did my lie turn into the most honest thing I’ve felt in years?
I don’t say this out loud. Some thoughts are too absurd, even for me.
Still, when she closes her eyes and her fingers stay wound through mine, one more thought pushes in right behind it.
Impossible to ignore.
This will be one heck of a story for our grandkids.
Whoa.