These Three Words (10 page)

Harriet and I both threw out our salads and walked back to the waiting room.

“Mrs. Grayson?” the nurse said. “You can go up now.”

I nodded. “Thank you,” I told Harriet. “I hope your daughter is okay.”

“I hope the same for your husband.”

We took each other’s hand and squeezed it.

I might never see her again, but, like Maude and James, I would remember her. She’d given me back the gift of that memory. That one beautiful moment of utter contentment and joy.

As I walked out of the waiting room, that one memory helped me bear the weight of the waiting.

Chapter Seven

I left the operating waiting room and tried to retrace my path to the elevators. I took one wrong turn, then saw the signs for the elevator and followed them.

I passed two open doors I hadn’t noticed before.

It was a chapel. I peeked in. There were a few rows of chairs, and at the front was more of a long table than an altar, behind which hung long drapes.

There were two people sitting in the room: a woman who was leaning against a man’s shoulder. I wondered if they were family or friends, or, like Harriet, James, and Maude, were simply two people sharing a horrible moment together.

Delving into my memories had eased my anxiety, at least for a minute. I hoped that revisiting a Piggly Wiggly, or remembering Anne’s E, or the joy of loving a child had softened the pain of Maude, James, and Harriet’s waiting as well.

I continued down the hall to the bank of elevators and rode one to the fourth floor. I followed the signs down the hall. A nurse greeted me. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see . . . Graham Grayson.” I hesitated over his name. Referring to him as Graham was difficult.

“This way, ma’am,” a nurse with a harried look about her said as she ushered me toward what was more of an opening than a proper door.

Gray’s room was little more than a cubby. It held a small window, a bed, a chair, and machines.

Gray had always seemed so solid and strong. He’d fearlessly taken on the world.

Now a tube snaked obscenely from his throat to a machine that I knew was breathing for him. Wires dangled from his chest and led to monitors. Another tube ran from an IV bag to his hand.

I could hardly see Gray underneath it all.

“It is a shock to see someone you love like this,” the nurse said kindly. “But it helps to remember that all this equipment is helping him.”

For months, we’d lived apart. I’d gone days, even weeks, without seeing him or talking to him. Now, I’d give anything if he’d open his eyes and say my name. Just
Addie
. For a man who didn’t articulate much, he had a way of infusing just my name with so much . . . well, love. But more than that. When he said my name I felt his belief in me. I remembered so many moments when that one word had told me so much.

“Ma’am?” the nurse said.

I realized that I’d been ready to dive into a memory again. I forced myself to concentrate on the present. “The doctor said he could be like this for a while?”

“Yes. Probably days. The doctors want to make sure his blood pressure is down and under control before they let him wake up.”

“Because of the tear and the stent?” In the here and now, I felt as if I were trying to wade through mud. I felt as if I couldn’t hold on to the information they were telling me.

But I slipped into the past with ease and reveled in the moments I shared with Gray. Moments I’d almost forgotten about in the pain of the last year were suddenly crystal clear.

For months, there was one moment with Gray that stood in the forefront of my mind. It was the straw that broke our marriage’s back. I’d come to think of it as my
straw moment
. I thought about it a lot and I hadn’t been able to get past it enough to look back at some of our better moments.

Until today.

Until it could be too late.

“Your husband,” she said, as if she could sense my thoughts and wanted to remind me Gray was still my husband, “will be sedated until he’s stronger and more stable. The longer he goes on, the better his odds.”

She didn’t say
goes on
what. I knew she meant the longer he continued breathing—went on living—the better his odds were of surviving.

I nodded.

“You can sit with him until eight o’clock,” she continued. “Then we ask the families to go home and get some rest. You can come back in the morning refreshed and better able to cope with everything.”

I looked at the clock. It was after four.

I’d lost all track of time here.

I had imagined that by now I’d have given Gray the papers and he’d have signed them. His signing the papers wouldn’t be enough to make our divorce official, but it would have been a symbolic end for me.

And a new beginning.

I’d thought by now I’d be sitting on the deck, watching the sun begin to set on my old life. I thought I’d be sipping a glass of wine and dreaming about what the next chapter of my life would look like.

I hadn’t been able to figure out what I wanted that future to be, but I knew that the last year wasn’t it.

“Mrs. Grayson, are you sure you’re okay?” the nurse asked.

I nodded.

Mrs. Grayson.

The words felt like a lie, but I didn’t say that. I said, “Thank you,” just as I had other times today.

“You can talk to him,” she said. “He’s under sedation, but he will hear you. He’ll know you’re here.”

I was relieved when she left to go to her perch just outside the door.

The ICU rooms were like the spokes in a wheel. From her station the nurse could see her patients, monitor their vitals, and was never more than a handful of steps away from any one of them.

This was where they sent the most touch-and-go patients.

This is where they sent the patients who were fighting for their lives.

After a day surrounded by people and noise as I waited for news about Gray, the quiet sounds of this room felt disconcerting. The faint hum of the machines. The soft whoosh of the ventilator. The muted noises from the rest of the hospital.

I looked out the long, narrow window. It wasn’t much of a window, but it was something. After spending much of the day in windowless rooms, I felt a small tremor of surprise that the world still seemed to be going on at its regular pace. Cars still sped along the city streets. The clouds obscured the sun, but I knew it was on its way down. The days were shorter in October.

People still went about their day.

Working. Playing. Laughing.

JoAnn was probably still at the store, covering for me.

Ash was probably still at his office, wheeling and dealing.

Everyone was simply going along with the tasks at hand.

My tasks had narrowed to just one. Gray.

He was the only thing on my agenda and there was really nothing I could do but wait.

I was here in limbo . . . just waiting. Along with Maude, James, and Harriet.

Waiting to see if our loved ones recovered. Knowing there was nothing else we could do for them.

“Here I am,” I said simply to Gray. “I’m here for you.”

After months of not talking, those words said it all.

Our relationship was damaged, maybe irreparably broken, but I was here for him.

I didn’t hold his hand because of the IV in it, but I laid my hand lightly on his fingertips, reminding him that he wasn’t alone.

I tried to think of something else to say, but couldn’t, so I slipped into silence.

The light whir of the machines was a white noise. It was easy to be lulled by the sound. Occasionally the intercom squawked, pulling me from my almost trance, but as soon as it silenced, I let myself fall back into the hum.

The nurse came in on occasion and looked at the machines. Once she shifted Gray on the bed, propping him on his side with pillows. “We want to prevent sores, so we’ll change his position for him.”

I nodded.

“Visiting hours are over in a half hour,” she said.

“Thank you,” I replied because I wasn’t sure what else to say. I’d stopped counting how many times I’d said those two words by rote, not meaning them at all.

“They’re going to make me leave soon,” I said to him. “But I’ll be back in the morning.”

I pulled out the picture and swan that I’d taken from Gray’s office and set them on the stand next to his bed.

I stared at the old photo. “We were so happy then. Where did we go wrong?” I asked myself . . . or maybe him.

I still had my swan at the Ferncliff house, tucked away in my jewelry box.

I’d seen him take his that night, but I hadn’t seen it since. Why had he found it and brought it out now? On his desk next to that picture?

I looked at Gray in the picture, then back at him on the bed, hooked up to tubes and wires.

The nurse sat just outside the room, presumably checking the monitors, ready to spring into action if anything happened.

I pulled the chair right up to the side of the bed and slid my hand under his, so I didn’t disturb the IV. It felt dry and cool.

I whispered, “I know I could live my life on my own . . . I’ve proven it over these last months. But, Gray, I don’t know if I can live my life on my own if you’re gone. I’ve been so mad at you. You let me mourn
alone and then you let me go. But I can’t let you go. I won’t.”

I don’t know how long I sat there, holding his hand, but the next thing
I knew, the nurse was touching my shoulders. “Visiting hours are over.”

I nodded and wordlessly rose. I realized I was still holding Gray’s hand. I kissed his fingertips. “I’ll be back first thing.”

I gathered my purse and the stupid envelope. I stopped at the nurses’ station. “I think I gave all my information when I registered Gray, but to be honest, I’m not sure. I wanted to be sure you had my cell number. You’ll call me if there’s any change?”

She took the card I extended to her. “I’ll check that it’s in the system, and I promise we’ll call if there’s any change.”

I looked back at Gray before leaving. I don’t think I’ve ever walked so slowly.

I didn’t know where to go.

Ferncliff? Glenwood? I knew the phone reception was spotty at the Ferncliff house. That fact hadn’t bothered me before, but I needed to be sure the hospital could reach me.

I knew that Gray wouldn’t mind if I went to the house on Willow Lane, but I wasn’t sure I could face it.

I started to walk toward the elevator, still not sure where I was going to go, but needing to move.

“Addie?” someone said. I jumped at the sound of my name. It seemed to reverberate in the empty hall.

I spun around and found Ash sitting in a small bank of chairs across from the elevators. “Ash?”

I didn’t need to ask why he was here.

His face was pinched with worry.

Ash, the eternal optimist, was worried.

He always believed the world was a wonderful place. And why shouldn’t he? He came from an affluent, loving family. He’d met Gray in college and they’d meshed. They were more than friends from the beginning. They were brothers. They’d built a successful business before either had reached their thirties.

Ash was the other half of Gray in a way I’d never be.

“They said I wasn’t family, so I couldn’t go back,” Ash said. He sounded mystified that the hospital wouldn’t deem him family.

“You should have said you were his brother. We both know that’s the truth. Or you could have had the nurse tell me you were here. I would have come out and talked to them.”

“No. I saw you sitting with him and knew you were what he needed. You’ve always been what he needed, Addie.”

I snorted at that.

Ash beckoned me to sit down and I obliged, more because I wasn’t ready to leave the hospital than because I needed to hear Ash’s pep talk. I could see him forming his rah-rah comments as I sat there. “I know you two are going through a rough patch—”

I stopped him by thrusting the now-ragged-looking manila envelope at him.

“I was at his office today bringing him these.” Ash held the envelope as if he didn’t know what to do with it, so I said, “Go ahead, open it.”

He opened the envelope and pulled out the papers. “Divorce?”

“We’re well past the point of no return. I thought it was time. I asked for half our savings, my car, and my personal items, but everything else is Gray’s. The house. His stake in the company. I would never interfere with something you two worked so hard to build.”

“You’re entitled to part of it.” Ash said the words I’d thought Gray would say. I know the image for businessmen is greed, but that wasn’t the case with either Ash or Gray. They might have different personal styles, but they both had honor that was bone deep.

I liked to think that so did I. I shook my head. “No. The company is his and yours.”

Suddenly, Ash’s expression hardened. “So you gave him the papers and he had a heart attack?”

I shook my head. “No. He never saw the papers.”

I could see that moment so clearly. Gray had looked unsure, but happy to see me. And then he’d collapsed in pain. So much pain. And I’d been helpless to stop it.

Ash still eyed me suspiciously. “You can’t give them to him now.”

“No. Not now,” I assured him. “Ash, I’m just not sure where we’ll go when he’s well. It’s been almost a year.”

“No, it hasn’t,” Ash said, echoing JoAnn. “It’s been eight months since you walked out. Gray would probably be able to tell you how many weeks and days, but eight months is accurate enough. A year isn’t.”

I refused to quibble about how long it had been since I left Gray, because, truth be told, he’d left me long before I walked out that door. “Regardless, it’s over. Until this morning, I hadn’t seen him for weeks. And last time I did see him, it didn’t go well.”

I braced myself for Ash to say something hurtful, but instead he simply said, “Addie, he needs you.”

“Right now, yes. But when he’s better?” I shook my head.

“He loves you,” Ash insisted.

“Maybe in his way, but I don’t think his way is the way I need to be loved.” I didn’t need someone who babbled about every little thing, but I did need someone who talked. Who shared something of himself.

Ash didn’t try to argue my comment; instead he asked, “Do you remember your first date?”

We’d been friends for so many years, and slowly we’d become something more, though neither of us had admitted it. We’d gone together to our senior prom and I’d thought something might happen, but nothing had. Not until . . .

I thought about the swan that had been sitting in his office. Its twin still tucked up in my jewelry box at home. “Of course,” I said quietly.

“Gray and I were assigned as roommates. And we hardly knew each other, but he came in that night with some stupid plastic thing and set it down on the windowsill in front of his desk.
What the hell is that?
I asked.