Chapter Seventy-Six

IN THE MOVIES, when someone might be dying, their loved one sits in a waiting room for a few hours, just enough time to slowly rise from the hard plastic chair at any sign of news looking slightly stale and tired. It didn’t work out like that for me. For the first six hours after I drove Susan to the hospital, I did sit and rise and pace and wait, looking stale and tired and no more, and there were many possible signs of news. But the news didn’t come. Eventually, Effie went away, and I was told that Nick was in post-op for his shattered knee. I didn’t go and visit him. The emergency department waiting room seemed to be where the nurses expected to find me, so that’s where I stayed.

When the news came, it was not the definitive “She made it!” of Hollywood movies. There was no one around to high-five and hug me. I’d been waiting eight hours, and they told me that Susan was resting from her first surgery and was about to go in for another round. They couldn’t tell me if she would live or die, or under what circumstances either might happen.

After a day, my beard stubble was appearing and my clothes were reeking from worry sweat. They told me they’d had to remove half of Susan’s left lung, as it had been torn to shreds by the bullet. They couldn’t tell me if she was in or out of the proverbial woods.

After two days, my hair was crazy and my eyes were wild from lack of sleep and refusal of food. They told me Susan was in an induced coma, which was bad, but there was no sign of brain damage, which was good.

After three days, I was walking like a zombie from catching naps in corners, on chairs, on a bench outside the waiting room doors, and while Effie had brought me new clothes, I hadn’t put them on. My skin was oily, and my teeth were furry, and my thoughts were fragmented from stress. When I was sleeping, I heard the hospital’s alarm and announcement system in my dreams, and my eyes ached from the fluorescent lights. They said Susan was showing signs of waking.

On the fourth day, I was roused from a drooling slumber, propped against the vending machine, drawn there by its strangely soothing hum. It was a nurse who woke me. She said I was allowed to visit Susan.

I ran, forgetting that I’d taken off my shoes and tucked them under the chair in the waiting room. In socked feet I almost slid over as I was coming to a halt at the door of the room the nurse was pointing to. It was dark and warm inside. Sitting up in the bed, Susan was awake and waiting for me.

Her eyes were sleepy, but she still frowned as she took me in.

“Bill,” she said. “Jesus. You look awful.”

I fell into the chair beside her bed and took her hand, put her palm against my face. She made a sound that might have been a little laugh, had she been stronger, had it not hurt so much. I cradled her fingers against my face and just looked at her, thanking God or the universe or dumb luck or whatever the hell was responsible for her being alive with every ounce of my soul.

“I’ve got a question for you,” I said eventually.

“Oh yeah?” she said. “Let me guess. You want to know if I forgive you for accidentally shooting me. You want to know if I’m that big of a woman.”

She was grinning at her own joke.

“That’s right,” I said.

She paused, thinking. Took back her hand and tapped a finger thoughtfully on her chin.

“Sure, what the hell,” she said. “I shot at you too, after all.”

“Well, that’s part one of my question answered, then.”

“It’s a two-parter?”

“Sure is.”

“All right,” Susan said. “What’s the second part?”

“If you could go so far as to forgive me,” I said, “would you marry me, too?”