F*ck Marriage(63)

We nod simultaneously. I glance at Woods, who looks disheveled, and I see that Pearl is watching him as well.

“We’re going to get going,” Pearl says. “Call us if anything changes?”

Jules looks away. She’d rather die than ever call Pearl, but I nod. I can tell Woods doesn’t want to leave, but Pearl grabs his arm and steers him out. Jules and I collapse into the plastic chairs. I realize it’s almost eight o’clock and neither of us have eaten.

“I’ll go get something,” she offers. “I can’t sit here and wait anymore. I feel like I’m going out of my mind.”

“All right,” I say slowly. “I’ll call if anything happens.”

She leaves, her eyes tinged pink, and her fists curled into balls under the sleeves of her sweater. I sit back down to wait. Jules has been gone for no more than twenty minutes when a nurse comes in and informs me that I can see Billie.

“Is she awake?” I ask, following her into the hallway.

She shakes her head. “No. But touch her, talk to her. Let her know you’re there. It helps.”

I nod as she leads me to the door of Billie’s room. She leaves me there and I hesitate a moment before stepping inside. Billie is the only color in the room, her skin pale and mottled with cuts and bruises the color of ripe fruit. I flinch when I see the oxygen tubes snaking into her swollen nose and I realize that it’s broken.

“Oh my God,” I say to myself.

I stand for what feels like forever, staring down at her broken body. This is my fault. I fought with her, said terrible things. She left the office upset and distracted. I pull the only chair in the room right up to her bed. I can’t hold her hand because of the tubes and needles, so I touch the only piece of her arm that isn’t scraped and bruised.

“Billie,” I say. “It’s Satch. I’m here, okay? And I’m not going anywhere. I swear.”

There’s no movement on the machines that read her vitals, no movement on her face. What if she never wakes up? I think. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I text Jules to tell her I’ve seen Billie, but by the time she arrives with two bags of takeout, they’ve told me visiting hours are over.

“But I didn’t get to see her,” she complains.

“We’ll come back first thing tomorrow,” I say.

I have no plan to leave the hospital tonight, but Jules nods even though she doesn’t look convinced.

“I can get out of work tomorrow. I don’t want her to be alone when she wakes up.”

“No. You’ve taken your vacation time for Christmas,” I remind her.

She frowns. Jules took off two weeks to go visit her family for the holidays. She flies out the day after tomorrow.

“I’ll stay. The office is closed anyway,” I say.

Reluctantly, she nods.

We eat in the waiting room, though we probably could have gone home since they won’t let us back in to see Billie. When we’re done eating, we clean up our mess, silently dumping the empty containers into the trash.

“I don’t want to go. I feel so guilty,” she says.

“She’s not going to wake up tonight,” I tell her. “Get some rest and you can be back right after work tomorrow.”

She nods, wrapping her arms around my waist. “I’m lucky to have you,” she says. “Billie and I both are.”

I doubt that, especially since I am the reason Billie is laid up in that bed in the first place.

When we walk out the door, there are two cabs waiting in the line.

“Two cabs. Perfect,” she says.

I put her in the first cab, bending down so I can see her.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I kiss her on the forehead.

As soon as her cab disappears, I walk back into the hospital.



I doze in the waiting room, my head tilted back and my legs stretched out in front of me until a teenage boy whose head is bent over his phone trips over my legs. I jar awake and he mumbles an apology before moving to a chair near the window. As soon as the nurse on duty will allow it, I am back in Billie’s room occupying the sole visitor chair. She tells me that there has been no change since last night. I spend the next few hours rubbing my thumb across her fingers and staring at her face in case she decides to open her eyes. I’m sick with worry, and to make matters worse, not a person in this goddamn hospital will give me a straight answer. I take to the Internet, which feeds me page after page of depressing statistics about head injuries. I try to reason with her, tell her she has to wake up, but she stays stubbornly still. I memorize the veins in the thin skin of her eyelids.

Jules comes to the hospital during her lunch hour. When she sees me in the same clothes as yesterday, she frowns.

“You stayed all night?”

Before I can answer, Woods walks through the door, a bouquet of wildflowers in his hand. His eyes widen when he sees Billie.

“Great. The whole crew is here,” I say.

He ignores me and steps over to her side, staring down at her. I’ll give it to the guy, he looks worried.

“Probably shouldn’t let Pearl see that moony look on your face,” I say.

“Fuck off, Satcher.”

Dust motes dance in the streaming light. I watch those instead of looking at Billie and Woods. She’s in a coma, and I’m jealous that he’s standing so close to her. I don’t know whether to laugh at myself or be disgusted.