Chapter 3 #2
He turns the page and puts on a hushed documentary voice. "The male has shed his protective shirt, revealing an impressive collection of tattoos. Unfortunately, none provides useful information about where he parked."
"They'll find the truck," I say, wiping my eyes. "You put it in front of the doors."
He keeps the narrator voice, grave and hushed. "In a rare display of competence, he has also remembered where he left his wife."
The nurse appears in the doorway. "Everything all right?"
"He's auditioning," I tell her. "We're hoping the hospital has a policy against it."
"Only after complaints from three rooms." She checks the monitor. "Use the call button if you need me."
When she leaves, Taz folds the pamphlet carefully along its original crease. His hands are steadier now. Mine aren't.
"I need to say something while I'm brave enough," I tell him.
He puts the paper down. "Tell me."
"I shouldn't have to bleed to get this version of you," I say.
The air leaves his chest. I keep hold of his hand because I don't want him to mistake this for me pushing him away.
"I know that sounds awful after you carried me in here," I tell him, squeezing his fingers. "I'm grateful. I was so scared, and you moved before I could even think. But you can't disappear again as soon as the doctor says we're okay."
"I won't," he says immediately.
"Give me a promise smaller than forever," I say. "One I can actually find on a calendar."
He sits forward. "Sundays and Wednesdays. No meetings. No phone at the table. If somebody needs me, it waits or they find someone else."
"The whole day?" I ask, not quite daring to believe it. "Not the leftover bit after you finish everything that matters?"
"The whole day." He says it the way he signs cattle contracts, slow and final. "I'll move what I have to move."
"And if I don't have anything impressive planned?" I pick at the edge of the blanket. "If we just sit at home and I fall asleep halfway through a movie?"
He smiles for the first time since the ER. "Then I can finally find out how one ends. You keep switching them off when the dog looks endangered."
"I have a strict entertainment policy," I tell him. "Enough things die without my buying tickets."
He kisses my knuckles. "We can watch the one with the terrible ranch fence again. You can tell me to stop criticizing it."
"You spent twenty minutes explaining how the cattle would escape," I remind him. "The villain was barely relevant by then."
"Bad fencing was the real threat." His smile fades. "I want those days too, Mol. I don't want to keep coming home and finding you already asleep."
"Sometimes I'm awake," I admit.
He looks at me.
"I hear you come in." I stare at our joined hands instead of his face. "I just can't bear asking how your day was and getting three words because you're too tired. So I keep my eyes shut."
His grip tightens. "Wake me up. Talk to me."
"I'm talking now," I say. "Please don't make the solution another thing I have to remember to do."
He nods slowly. "I'll come to you. Wednesday. Sunday. I won't wait for you to complain before I notice you're sitting there."
I study his face. His eyes are red, and there's a mark on his cheek from pressing it against my hand. I want this man. I don't need a flawless one, just this one, still here when nobody's taking our blood pressure.
"I need you at the next scan," I say. "Even if it's boring. Especially if it's boring. I'd like to be happy about the heartbeat without first thinking I'm about to lose it."
"Tell me the time when they book it," he says. "I'll put it in myself. You won't have to remind me."
"And please don't announce that you've rearranged your whole day for me when we get there," I add. "I don't want to feel like an expensive favor."
He closes his hand around mine. "You're my wife. I made you feel like an interruption, and I'm sorry."
My eyes fill before I can answer. He moves onto the edge of the gurney when I pull his hand, fitting himself around me with absurd care for a man who usually treats furniture as a thing that has to survive him.
"You're taking up most of the hospital bed," I murmur into his chest. "If they bill by square foot, we're ruined."
"I'll sell the truck," he murmurs into my hair. "Can't remember where it is anyway."
I laugh against his skin and then cry, properly, without trying to make it quiet. His palm moves over my back.
"I kept thinking I'd done this," I tell him. "Walked too much. Carried a box that was too heavy. I know she explained it, but my brain keeps looking for a crime."
"You heard her." He tips my chin up so I have to look at him. "You didn't cause this. We follow what she told us, and we call if anything changes. You don't have to investigate yourself all night."
"Stay until I fall asleep?" I ask.
"I'm here," he says. "The truck can continue its distinguished career as an obstruction."
He holds me until the nurse returns with the discharge papers. When he reaches for me again, I put my arms around his neck.
Dawn is breaking by the time we pull into the driveway, pale pink light spilling across the sky. I'm exhausted in a bone-deep way that has nothing to do with how little sleep I've gotten. Taz carries me again despite my protests, up the porch steps and through the front door.
Kendall is waiting in the kitchen.
She's wearing a silk robe, her hair perfectly tousled, like she rolled out of bed specifically to look effortlessly beautiful. There's a mug of tea on the counter in front of her and her face arranges itself into concern as we enter.
"Oh my God," she says, standing up quickly. "I heard you leave hours ago. I've been worried sick."
She moves toward us, and before I can process what's happening, she's hugging Taz. Her arms go around him while I'm still in his arms, this awkward three-person embrace where I'm squished in the middle like an afterthought. I can smell her perfume, expensive and floral.
"I couldn't sleep," she continues, pulling back but keeping one hand on his arm. "I just had this feeling you were in trouble. Are you okay? Is everything okay?"
The question is directed at him. She aims it at him and skips right past me, the one who was actually in the hospital.
"Molly had a scare," Taz says, and his voice is tired. "She's okay. The baby's okay. We just need to get her to bed."
"A scare?" Kendall's hand flies to her own stomach. "Oh no. What happened?"
"Some bleeding." I say it before Taz can answer for me again. "But it's fine. The heartbeat was strong."
"Bleeding." Kendall shakes her head slowly, and her eyes stay on my stomach a beat too long. "That must have been terrifying. God, I can't even imagine."
Taz shifts me in his arms. "I need to get her upstairs."
"Of course, of course." Kendall steps aside, but as we pass her, she reaches out and squeezes his arm. "We're due the same month, you know. Isn't that fate?"
Her fingers stay on his arm, his, not mine, as if she's claiming territory.
"You're the only one I can count on," she says, and her voice does this trembling thing that might be real or might be performance. I genuinely can't tell anymore. "Everyone has their own life. My family's far away. And with everything I'm going through—"
Taz gives her a nod, awkward and tired, the universal male gesture for I don't know what to do with this but I'm trying.
"You should get some rest," he tells her. "Both of you."
Both of us. Like we're the same. Like Kendall's mystery pregnancy and my bleeding scare belong in the same sentence.
She pulls back, dabs at her eyes, dry, I notice, completely dry, and gives me a brave little smile. "I'm so glad you're home. It helps, you know? Knowing I'm not alone."
And then she lets us by, her silk robe brushing a kitchen chair, and Taz is carrying me toward the stairs, and I'm so tired I can barely form words, let alone the question pounding in my skull.
But I form it anyway. Silently. Turning it over and over in my head.
And she never once asked if my baby was okay.