18. Josie
JOSIE
The waiting room smelled like floor cleaner and stale coffee. I sat with my hands in my lap, one of them closed around something iron in my coat pocket, and I did not remember deciding to put it there. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Someone coughed down the hall.
I had called the ambulance. I had seen it happen on my phone, watched the whole thing, and there was nothing I could do but call. My hands had been shaking so badly I could barely hold the phone steady enough to give them the address.
A nurse came through the double doors and looked around the waiting room. Her scrubs were patterned with small blue flowers. She had a clipboard in one hand.
"Family for Vincent Ardito?"
I stood before I could think about it. "I'm his wife."
The word felt strange in my mouth. I was not sure I still had the right to it.
The divorce papers had been filed. He had been served.
For all I knew, he had signed them already and I was just the woman who used to be married to him, waiting in a hospital at two in the morning because I did not know what else to do.
The nurse nodded and made a note on her clipboard. She did not ask me to prove it.
"He's out of surgery," she said. "The doctor will be out to talk to you in a few minutes."
I sat back down. My hand went to my pocket again and I realized I was tracing the shape of the ring through the fabric, around and around, like I was trying to memorize it. I made myself stop.
God, I had almost lost him.
The thought kept circling back, over and over, no matter how many times I tried to push it away.
I had watched him go down on that screen.
I had watched the blood spread across the concrete under the streetlights and I had not been able to do anything but scream at my phone and dial three numbers and beg them to hurry.
I did not know if he had heard me. I did not know if he knew I was the one who called.
He could have died on my corner, in front of my shop, and the last thing I would have said to him was that I wanted a divorce.
My throat went tight. I pressed my palm flat against my leg and tried to breathe normally. The couple across from me were holding hands and not talking. The man had a split lip. The woman looked like she had been crying for hours.
A doctor came through the doors, a tall man with gray at his temples, and he scanned the room until his eyes landed on me. I stood again.
"Mrs. Ardito?"
I nodded. My voice came out steadier than I expected. "How is he?"
"He's stable," the doctor said. He had the calm, even tone of someone who had given this speech a thousand times and knew exactly how much information to give and how fast. "The blade missed anything vital, but he lost a lot of blood.
We've repaired the damage and he's in recovery now. He was lucky."
Lucky. I thought about the men with the petrol bomb, about Vince standing in my doorway and refusing to move, about the fact that if I had not been watching that feed he might have bled out before anyone found him. That was not luck. That was just barely enough.
"Can I see him?"
"He's going to be groggy for a while," the doctor said. "But yes, you can sit with him. I'll have someone take you back."
The recovery room was small and dim, just a bed and a chair and a lot of machines that beeped softly to themselves.
Vince was lying flat on his back with his eyes closed, an IV in his arm and a monitor clipped to his finger.
He looked pale under the fluorescent light, and there was a bandage taped across his side that I could see through the gap in the hospital gown.
I sat down in the chair next to the bed and folded my hands in my lap. My fingers were cold. I rubbed them together but it did not help.
Seeing him like this was worse than watching it happen.
Watching it happen, I could move, I could call for help, I could do something.
Sitting here, there was nothing left to do.
He was already in the bed. The surgery was already over.
All I could do was wait for him to wake up and hope that he did.
The machines kept beeping. The IV dripped. I counted the seconds between each beep and tried not to think about how still he was.
God, what was I even doing?
I should not be here. I had filed for divorce.
I had moved out. I had spent two months trying to convince myself that I was done, that I could let him go, that I did not need to keep checking that camera feed every night like some kind of idiot who could not take a hint.
And the first time something went wrong, I was right back in his orbit, sitting in a hospital chair at two in the morning because I could not imagine being anywhere else.
Like an idiot, I reached out and brushed a strand of hair off his forehead. His skin was warm. That was something, at least. He was warm and breathing and the machines said his heart was beating, and that had to be enough for now.
His eyes opened. Slowly, like it took effort. He blinked a few times, unfocused, and then his gaze found me and something in his expression shifted.
"Josie."
His voice was rough, barely more than a whisper. He sounded surprised. Like he had not expected me to be there.
I leaned forward. My heart was pounding. "Hey."
"You came."
"Of course I came." The words came out sharper than I meant them to.
I did not know how to explain that I had watched the whole thing, that I had seen him go down and called the ambulance and spent the last three hours thinking he might die before I got to say anything to him ever again.
I did not know how to say any of that without crying, and I was not going to cry. Not here. Not now.
He was still looking at me, and there was something in his face that I had not seen in a long time. Relief, maybe. Or gratitude. It made my chest hurt.
I swallowed hard. "You scared me."
"I know," he said. "I'm sorry."
He did not sound like he was apologizing for scaring me. He sounded like he was apologizing for everything, for all of it, and I did not know what to do with that either.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked. The question came out before I could stop it, and once it was out I could not take it back. "The street. The shop. All of it. Why?"
He closed his eyes for a second, like he was trying to find the words and they were not coming easily. When he opened them again, he looked tired. Not just surgery-tired. Tired all the way down.
"I forgot," he said. His voice was quiet, and he was not looking at me anymore. He was looking at the ceiling, or maybe at nothing. "I forgot that behind all the numbers, there are people."
I stared at him. That was it. That was the answer. No speech, no explanation, no list of reasons that added up to something that made sense. Just that. He forgot.
Something in my chest cracked open. It was not forgiveness. It was not even close to forgiveness. But it was something, a small shift, like a door I had nailed shut was suddenly open just a crack and I could see light on the other side.
I reached out and took his hand. His fingers closed around mine automatically, and then his thumb moved, a slow stroke across the back of my hand, right over the place where the diamond used to be.
He did not say anything about it. He just kept moving his thumb back and forth, like he was trying to make sure I was real.
My other hand was still in my pocket, curled around the iron ring. I did not take it out.
"I missed you," he said.
The words hit me like a slap. I opened my mouth and nothing came out.
I wanted to say it back. I wanted to tell him I missed him too, that I had been miserable without him, that I had spent the last two months trying not to think about him and failing every single time.
But I could not make myself say it. The words stuck in my throat and would not move.
He did not push. He just kept holding my hand, his thumb still tracing that empty space, and he did not ask me for anything.
That was what broke me. Not the surgery, not the bandage, not the machines beeping around us.
The fact that he was not asking. He was not asking me to come home.
He was not asking me to stop the divorce.
He was not asking me to forgive him. He was just lying there, pale and tired and glad I was there, and he was not asking me for a single thing.
I leaned in. I did not decide to do it, I just did it, and then my mouth was on his and his hand tightened around mine and everything else disappeared.
God, this was everything I wanted. The kiss was soft and desperate at the same time, and I could feel my pulse kicking up, my heart racing so hard I thought it might burst. He tasted like antiseptic and something metallic, and I did not care.
I just wanted to be closer, to make sure he was real, to hold onto this moment before it slipped away and I had to go back to being the woman who had filed for divorce and did not know how to stop loving him.
His free hand came up to cup my face, his thumb brushing my cheekbone, and I felt something in my chest bloom open like I had been holding my breath for two months and could finally breathe again.
Then the fear arrived. Cold and sharp, right in the center of my chest.
What if this did not change anything? What if I forgave him and we went back to the penthouse and everything was fine for a month, or six months, or a year, and then we ended up right back where we were?
What if this was just temporary? What if I was kidding myself, thinking that one night in a hospital could fix nine years of him being gone?
I pulled back. My hand was still in his, but I could not look at him.
He did not try to stop me. He did not pull me back in, did not ask me what was wrong, did not try to kiss me again. He just let me go, and that made it worse somehow.
"I'm scared," I said. The words came out in a whisper. I did not mean to say them out loud, but once they were out I could not take them back. "I'm scared that this won't last. That if I forgive you, we'll just end up back where we were."
I waited for him to tell me I was wrong.
I waited for him to explain it away, to tell me this time was different, that he had changed, that it would not happen again.
That was what he always did. He always had an answer, always had a reason, always had a way of making my feelings sound like something I had misunderstood.
He did not do that.
"I know," he said.
I looked at him. His eyes were still tired, but they were clear, and he was looking right at me.
"I know," he said again. "You're right to be scared."
My throat went tight. I did not know what to say to that. I did not know what to do with a Vince who acknowledged my fear instead of explaining it back to me like I was a problem he could solve.
I stood up. My hand slipped out of his and I shoved both of them into my pockets, my fingers closing around the iron ring again. I needed to leave. I needed to get out of this room before I started crying or kissing him again or doing something else I would regret.
"I should go," I said.
He nodded. He did not ask me to stay.
I made it to the door before I stopped. I did not turn around. I just stood there, one hand on the door frame, and I did not know why I was not leaving.
"Goodnight, Vince," I said. My voice was quiet. "I'll be back."
I did not wait for him to answer. I just walked out.