Chapter Six Mercy
Chapter Six
Mercy
“You know when you have a baby and you only get a couple days in the hospital before they send you home?”
“Yes.”
“There’s got to be a part of you—as a stunningly proficient health care professional—that wonders how the fuck those people are going to handle it without your help.” I paused. “Wouldn’t you want to keep them there until the baby isn’t so . . . breakable?”
Nell laughed. “Nah. People are resilient, and they learn quickly. Why are you asking?”
We both sat on the bed, and Nell was braiding my freshly washed hair.
They’d removed the stitches the day before, and giving myself a normal shampoo had felt like the height of luxury.
We waited for Grant to deal with the discharge paperwork.
I wasn’t even entirely sure it existed, or if he was just looking for something to keep him out of the line of fire.
All morning, I’d been on edge. So had he.
His prompt arrival at the beginning of visiting hours had brought an entirely different energy from the day before.
We were standing on a cliff’s edge, Grant and I, and my toes had curled into the rock face and found it crumbling beneath me before I’d made a single move.
Outside my room, Grant’s voice was hardly audible, the deep timbre sending a frisson of nervous energy up my spine. He was on the phone. Again. The buzzing had been nonstop from the moment he arrived. Texts and calls. The calls were answered, but only once he cleared the doorway.
Maybe he had several girlfriends. Boyfriends. Whatever. My mind spun with so many theories I felt like the meme of the crazy-eyed guy with the red string connecting a huge whiteboard of evidence.
“How am I supposed to do this?” I whispered frantically to Nell, more quietly than was necessary, but I was not chancing that he’d walk in and overhear my mental gymnastics.
“Ahh,” she said knowingly. “You’re the helpless baby in this scenario? Flattering.”
“Fuck off, Nell. You know what I mean.”
My swearing didn’t faze her, probably because she knew I didn’t mean it like that.
“More like, how are we supposed to handle this?” I said, gesturing at my head.
There was nothing to see, of course. Not with my hair pulled off my face.
The area where the stitches had been removed was healing nicely, and once the hair grew back, there’d be no external proof that I was glitching.
“He’s just a man who wants you to get better.” She reached past me to pluck a hair tie off the bed next to my hip, twisting it around the end of my hair where it fell to my shoulder blades. “What’s scary about that?”
“Everything.”
With a quiet hum, she shifted so that she was sitting in front of me. Her eyes saw everything. “He makes you nervous, doesn’t he?”
I scoffed. “No.”
Nell’s eyebrow rose.
“A little.”
The bullshit accusation in her eyes was clear as day, and I let out a petulant sigh. “Okay fine, he makes me a lot nervous. And I don’t understand, because I don’t get nervous around men. They get nervous around me.”
“I believe that more now that you’re not wobbling half naked down the hallway.”
“Hey . . .”
She laughed. “My point, sweetheart, is that you do give off that If you piss me off, I might burn down your house energy.”
I set my palm on my chest. It was a lot easier now without the needle jammed into the top of my hand. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“I’m inclined to believe you.” Her eyes skated over my face, the all-seeing, all-knowing Nell. “And he never made you nervous?”
“No. Scandalizing that man was my favorite hobby.” I smiled because this memory was crystal clear.
“On my twenty-first birthday, Connor got sick and had to crash early. Grant was still at my brother’s place, and I whipped off my shirt and told him I was going skinny-dipping in the river behind the house. ”
“Oh boy.”
“He followed me, convinced that something horrible was going to happen if I was out at night by myself.”
“Naked,” Nell clarified.
“Well, not yet.” I laughed under my breath. “He was so pissed. I turned around, completely topless, and told him he was ruining my buzz, and if he couldn’t zip it, then he needed to strip down and join me.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t.”
“No.” Every detail of that night was perfect in my mind.
The light from the moon—it was full, or close to it—reflecting off the water like a mottled spotlight, my own audacity more potent than any drop of alcohol I’d consumed.
“He leaned up against a tree—not a wrinkle in his oxford—folded his arms, and didn’t say another word.
I stripped off the rest of my clothes and ran into the water. ”
“Why does this not surprise me?”
“God, it was so cold. I was in the water for less than a minute when a fish nibbled on my foot. I screamed and ran out. That man was as silent as the grave as I pulled my shirt and underwear back on, walked behind me the entire way back to Connor’s house.”
“Tell her the rest.”
My eyes snapped up at the sound of Grant’s voice.
I pursed my lips and held his gaze. If he was nervous, it sure as shit didn’t show.
“That’s the whole story.”
“Oh, we mustn’t tell lies.” His eyebrow quirked. “What month is your birthday?”
I slicked my tongue over my teeth. “March.”
Nell covered her mouth to hide her laugh.
“And?” he prompted smugly.
I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“She got pneumonia,” he finished, shifting his eyes to Nell. “Took her three weeks to recover.”
“You can’t get pneumonia from being cold and wet. I probably already had it.” I pointed at Nell. “Ask my very smart nurse here.”
Nell held up her hands, getting off the bed. “I’m not getting involved.” But she paused next to Grant and spoke in a lowered voice. “She’s right, though.”
My smile was unrepentantly smug. Grant didn’t even have the grace to roll his eyes.
My smile fell on a sigh. “It’s not even fun to be right around you, because you don’t give me the reaction I want.”
“That’s intentional, darling.” He tucked a manila folder of papers under his arm and reached down to grab the bag holding my pajamas and other items that had accumulated over the last couple weeks. “Shall we?”
“Now?” My stomach tried to kick its way out of my skin, absolutely wild with those stupid nerves. “Already?”
His jaw worked back and forth, like he was considering asking me something, but thought better of it. Trying to get a read on his facial expression was pointless, like trying to catch air in my hand, so I didn’t even try.
“It’s understandable to be nervous.”
I crossed my arms tightly across my waist. “I’m not nervous,” I said, sounding so fucking defensive that I winced.
“If you say so.” With his free hand, he gestured toward the hallway. For the first day since I woke up, I was wearing real clothes. Clothes I didn’t recognize.
The black joggers and simple white T-shirt were far nicer than anything I remembered owning, and the pants were loose around my waist. Apparently a brief coma and a hospital stay knocked some pounds off.
Everything was unfathomably soft and hung off my curves quite nicely.
With my hair braided off my face and no visible sign of my battle wound, I felt .
. . better. Not quite like myself, but better.
As I got off the bed, Grant’s brow flickered slightly, but he kept himself at a safe distance. Since the finger-grazing phone pass-off and the unfortunate I almost keeled over moment, we hadn’t touched. My husband, it seemed, was doing everything in his power to make me comfortable.
In turn, no matter how badly I didn’t want to say it out loud, that made me really, unfortunately, terribly nervous. I didn’t want to make space for that particular feeling, because I was already at a disadvantage with Grant. Wasn’t I always, though?
For as long as I could remember, something about Grant had set my teeth on edge. Almost like I needed to defend my very nature, simply because it was completely incongruent with his.
But I’d married him.
My ribs threatened to cave in when I thought it. I’d married him.
It had been easy to ignore, to allow my marital status to remain an incorporeal being that simply floated to the corners of the room when I couldn’t be bothered to dwell on it too long.
But now, it was as solid as shit, because he was taking me home.
As I walked in slow, measured steps, he stayed behind at a safe distance.
Before I left the room, I braced my hand on the doorway and turned to stare at the bed.
At the forgettable artwork and the walls the color of uncooked oatmeal.
The nightstands that had been cleared of flowers and cards, everything that belonged to me already shipped back to a home that wouldn’t be familiar.
I pinched my eyes shut and willed my brain to come to heel.
Why? Why can’t you just remember?
There was no sudden burst of memories when I opened my eyes, but when I walked through the door, the nurses were waiting, smiling and applauding that I could go home, Nell in the center with tears in her eyes.
She swept me into a tight hug, and if I wasn’t so fucking terrified to leave her, I might have let a bit of emotion squeak through.
But I couldn’t, because if I started . . .
Oh baby, if I started crying, it would be days before I tapped out what was brewing underneath my skin. I’d need seventeen pounds of chocolate and nonstop rom-coms to have any hope of stopping.
A few other nurses I’d gotten to know stepped forward for hugs when Nell finally deigned to let me go.
Dr. Washington was there, too, as well as an intern who’d blushed every time I cursed in his presence.
Even Fred, the elderly man in the room next door, came out and gave me a hug, hands patting just a little too low on my back before Dr. Washington cleared her throat and gave him a pointed look.
He pulled back and winked, disappearing into his room with shuffling steps.