Prologue #3
“I’m not married to you anymore.” I move away from him and his already-packed suitcase and collapse on the bed.
It’s a sofa bed and we normally fold it up each morning to create more space in our Lancaster Gate studio flat, but I didn’t have time before my shift and he clearly had better things to do.
Like packing up his stuff, ready to leave.
I’m not even mad about it. I’m grateful to have it already set out so I can crash as soon as I’ve watched him leave. I worked fourteen hours straight today. I’m dead on my feet.
“I was only going to leave for a while,” he says and I can’t tell if there’s scorn in his voice or something softer. I choose to ignore that possibility. “I just wanted some space to think.”
“Well, you have your whole life to think now,” I tell him.
His laughter is strangled with disbelief. “You’ve made up your mind then?”
“Yes,” I say, firmly. He’s an idiot for even asking. He knows once I decide on something, that’s it.
“But what will you do if you do get… it?”
“For fuck’s sake, Tao, for the hundredth time I’m not going to get AIDS.”
“But you might,” he says. “And who will look after you then?”
He’s talking about my family. Or rather my lack of one.
An only child, I haven’t spoken to my mother in nearly ten years.
My father is back in China and his only contact with me is wire transferring fifty pounds to me at Lunar New Year, without even a Gong Xi Fa Cai to wish me prosperity.
His parents have never met me. My other grandmother died when I was a child and I chose not to go to my grandfather’s funeral last year.
And I haven’t exactly made a huge effort with Tao’s family, rarely swapping shifts to go to gatherings and occasionally skipping them because I was too tired after a full week of work.
“I have friends,” I say.
“No, you don’t.” Another twisted scoff. “You have the nurses you work with and they’re all too busy and tired to give a shit. And they’re probably all going to get it too anyway so…”
“Haven’t you heard a single thing I’ve said in the last five years? You don’t just get it by being close to somebody with the infection. You have to swap bodily fluids, not including saliva. What exactly do you think I’m doing with my patients?”
“I wouldn’t like to say.” He crosses his arms and it makes him look smaller, weaker. Did I ever really find him attractive? Did he ever make me feel safe? Or was I just imagining it? Did I just want us to work so badly that I convinced myself he was what I wanted?
“Just get out.” I want to shout it but I don’t have the energy. “Just go.”
“You really want this? A divorce?”
My bones ache with exhaustion. At least that’s what I think it is. “Yes, I do.” I move up the bed and crawl under the covers, still fully dressed.
There will be so much to do. So much to figure out. But right now, I can’t think about it.
“I’ll stop paying rent on this place,” he says and there’s no doubting the scorn in his voice now.
“Fine,” I say. I have savings. I’ll make it work.
“Fine,” he repeats.
I give up trying to keep my eyes open. My lids sink shut but my ears prick up, waiting to hear the click of our door closing.
It takes a minute or two and for a moment I wonder if he’s going to change his mind, and it’s in the panic that brings me that I know this is what has to happen. This is the way it has to be.
He didn’t love me. Not the full person I am. He never did.
When the click comes, I exhale deeply.
He’s gone. It’s over.
Now all I have is my job, I think reflexively.
I push the words away. It may be true but it’s not going to make me feel better. What will make me feel better is sleeping for a week.
But that’s not an option. I have to be back at the hospital in less than ten hours. So I open my eyes again, set the alarm on my digital clock, turn off all the lights in the room, strip down to my underwear and climb back into bed.
The sheets smell of him. I’ll change them tomorrow.
I close my eyes again and expect sleep to take me.
But it doesn’t. I’m still lying there motionless many minutes later as car horns and shouting erupt from outside the window. Even when that noise has died down, I don’t feel any closer to sleep, but I refuse to get up and turn the light on so I have to face what just happened.
Instead, I plump up my pillow, roll over to my other side and imagine what Lady Phantom would do in my position.
My favourite comic book superhero, Lady Phantom, is a strong, independent woman who harnesses her superpower – communicating with the dead – for good.
She solves mysteries and saves lives by fighting evil, aided only by her sidekick, the Director, a female funeral director who helps her connect with the departed and also comes to her aid when she needs it most.
Lady Phantom certainly wouldn’t waste any time missing Tao. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t look back. She’d focus on moving forward. And maybe she’d call the Director and see if she wanted to get drunk with her.
The Director who she’s obviously in love with.
From nowhere, or maybe somewhere very specific, I smile to myself. It doesn’t last. But it happens.
Maybe I will smile some more in the future. One day.
And then, mercifully, I fall asleep.