These Three Words

by Holly Jacobs

  But I could.

  The nurse wove through the halls.

  I knew if left to my own devices I’d never find my way back through the labyrinth. Gray had always helped me with direction. To be honest, I was hopeless. I’d lived in Erie all my life and still navigated by landmarks rather than roads.

  Gray had learned to give me directions that way. Go to the church with the stained glass front window you love and . . .

  I blinked my eyes rapidly, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to escape.

  How had I imagined I’d navigate my life without him?

  The papers in my hand seemed to weigh more with each passing step. This morning I’d planned to walk away from Gray permanently, and now I wanted nothing more than to see him again.

  I knew that the chasm that had widened over the last year wouldn’t disappear, but I also realized that it didn’t matter now. Only he mattered.

  What if he didn’t survive?

  They’d talked about his high risk of death.

  “What will I do if he dies?” I asked myself more than the nurse who was escorting me.

  “We’re going to do our best to see to it that doesn’t happen.” She’d probably said those words countless times. They came as naturally to her as saying thank you or please did to me.

  We both knew that she wasn’t promising me that Gray wouldn’t die, only that they’d do their best to try to save him.

  What if their best wasn’t good enough?

  Losing Gray would devastate me. I realized that if anyone else knew about the papers in my hand, they’d wonder at my thought, but there was a vast difference between divorce and death.

  Both had a finality associated with them, but death was an absolute. With a divorce, I’d still have a chance of bumping into Gray around town. I’d read articles in the paper about Steel, Inc. and they’d mention him. They’d maybe include a picture. Friends might tell me his latest news.

  If we just divorced, I’d be able to go to sleep at night knowing Gray was somewhere out in the city doing something . . . even if it wasn’t with me.

  But now he was somewhere in this maze of pastel-walled halls and might not ever leave them alive.

  The nurse led me through a doorway into another waiting room. More televisions hung overhead, and fake potted plants punctuated the corners. I knew they weren’t real because this was a windowless room in the bowels of the hospital. It was as if the staff wanted to shut away all of us who were waiting. As if they didn’t want the rest of the visitors to witness our anxiety, our pain, and sometimes our grief.

  “Here you go, ma’am. There are drinks here,” she said, pointing to a table. “Please help yourself. It will be a couple of hours at the very least,” she said gently.

  “Is this one of those heart procedures where you thread a catheter through a vein? I’m sure the doctor said, but I’m having trouble—” I stopped. That about summed it up. I was having trouble with all of this.

  I, who had a head for numbers and names—

  I, who had an internal clock and calendar—

  I couldn’t seem to keep track of what time it was, just as I couldn’t grasp the name or description of Gray’s problem. His heart. That’s all I could seem to cling to.

  Something—not a heart attack—was wrong with his heart.

  I twisted the envelope tighter.

  I’d expected to go into the office, hand Gray the papers. I expected him to see the logic in the terms I’d had the lawyer insert. I was leaving him the bulk of our assets. I was honest when I acknowledged that the majority of the money for them came from Steel, Inc.

  I’d thought I’d hand him the papers, he’d sign them, and I’d walk out well on my way to being divorced. That’s what I expected.

  Not this. Not talk of surgery and death.

  “It’s open-heart surgery, ma’am,” the nurse said gently.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  She reached out and patted my shoulder—this young girl who had to be freshly graduated. “Just make yourself comfortable. Someone will come find you as soon as we have any news.”

  “Thank you.” That sense of politeness was so ingrained that the words came automatically to my lips. I wondered if they sounded as superficial to her as they did to me.

  I didn’t want to thank this girl who looked at me with such sympathy.

  I didn’t want to thank her for leading me to this room that was tucked up in the depths of the hospital, hidden away from the rest of the visitors.

  I didn’t want to thank her for assuring me she’d come tell me if my husband was dead.

  And yet the words fell unbidden from my lips.

  She didn’t seem to sense my antipathy. She gave me another of her sympathetic looks. “Can I call someone for you?”

  That phrase.

  I’d heard that phrase before.

  I’d been a freshman at college and practically crawled into the campus health department.

  “It’s the flu,” the nurse there had proclaimed. “It’s making the rounds. Can I call someone for you?”

  “Gray,” I said and rattled off his number.

  It wasn’t even fifteen minutes later that he strode into the room. “You should have called me sooner. I could have brought you here.”

  Normally I’d bristle and remind him for the umpteenth time that I was capable of taking care of myself. But if I tried that today, we’d both know it was a lie.

  “I had them call you now,” I managed.

  “Better late than never,” he said in that clipped, succinct way of his.

  Then without waiting for a by-your-leave, he scooped me up and took me back to the dorm.

  He’d skipped classes for two days to take care of me.

  He’d made me tea and canned soup. He’d even let me pick the television shows.

  All that was sweet, but while I couldn’t remember what we’d watched or what kind of soup he’d made, I remembered that he’d been there the whole time. He’d stayed with me.

  I realized the nurse was waiting for me to respond to her question about calling someone.

  “No, thank you. But you’re right, I should make some calls. Thank you.” The words slipped out again as I turned my back on her and looked at this new room.

  There were maybe half a dozen people in the waiting room. All of them waiting to hear about someone they loved.

  I picked a quiet corner and took one of the hard seats.

  I dug my cell phone out of my purse. As I slid my finger across the screen, I saw that Ash had called five times. I didn’t bother to listen to the messages, but simply hit the callback button. I knew he’d heard about Gray’s collapse.

  I didn’t hear it ring on my end, so Ash must have pounced on it at the first sound. “Addie, I’ve been going crazy,” he said by way of a greeting. “Which hospital are you at? Did they tell you what’s wrong? How is he?”

  I thought about the doctor, then the nurse’s grim expression. “It’s not good, Ash,” I told Gray’s best friend and business partner. “Not good at all.”

  “I can be there in ten minutes,” he said. “Just tell me where I’m going.”

  I imagined Ash jumping from his chair and heading toward the door as he said the words. That was Ash—a charge-in-headfirst sort of man—while Gray was more of a plotter and planner. They complemented each other in business and in their friendship.

  But I couldn’t handle Ash charging about here. He’d pace and fret and hound the staff. And in the end none of that would help Gray.

  “No, Ash. There’s nothing to do here but wait. He’s in surgery for at least a few hours.”

  I could almost picture Ash sinking back into his chair and running his fingers through his white-blond hair, his model-handsome face contorting with concern. “He had a heart attack, then?”
>
  “No. I forget the name, but there’s a tear in a vessel near his heart. They’re doing open-heart surgery. I got fuzzy on some of what the doctor said, but I think they’re putting in a stent, something to keep that tear from bursting. After the surgery, he’ll be in a medically induced coma for days. He won’t know you’re here.”

  “But you will,” Ash said softly.

  His offer was tempting. But if he came to the hospital I’d lean on him and I didn’t want to lean on anyone. I’d spent the last year trying to discover how to stand on my own two feet.

  I think I knew my marriage to Gray was over the moment I walked out the door to our Willow Lane house, but it had taken me all these months to learn to stand on my own enough to make it official.

  No matter how easy it would be to lean on Ash, I couldn’t move backward. “I’m fine,” I said. It was probably the biggest lie I’d ever told. I was many things, but fine wasn’t one of them. “I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything.”

  “I—” I thought he was going to argue, but in the end he simply said, “Whatever you need, Addie. I mean it . . . whatever. Call me no matter what time of day or night.”

  “I’ll call when he’s out of surgery,” I promised, then hung up before he could offer to come down again.

  I didn’t want to see Ash.

  I didn’t want someone I knew here, watching me break down if the worst happened.

  I didn’t want to admit I needed anything or anyone. I wasn’t someone who asked for help or favors. I needed to think I was self-sufficient.

  “Are you okay?” a man from across the room asked.

  I nodded and tried to offer him a smile, but I wasn’t sure it was overly convincing. Then I dialed Gray’s mom, Peggy’s, number. It rang and rang, then went to voice mail. I hung up, not knowing how to tell Peggy in a message to come to the hospital.

  Then I remembered she was on the cruise that Gray had given her as a birthday gift. She was out of the country and had warned us she’d be turning her phone off because she wasn’t wasting money on adding international minutes to her plan. But she’d promised to check her e-mail daily.

  I’d just read a post this morning. She talked about the island they’d stopped at and the ladies she’d befriended.

  I’d sat at my computer and realized how hurt Peggy would be to come back and find out Gray and I’d signed the divorce papers. For the last year, she’d lived her life believing we’d get back together. I’d dreaded telling her I wasn’t ever moving back to Willow Lane.

  But I dreaded telling her Gray was sick even more.

  I e-mailed her from my phone. I wrote, “Call me as soon as you get this, please,” in the header. I didn’t want her to be too scared, but I thought that was enough to get her attention. In the body of the e-mail I wrote, “Gray’s sick and we’re at the hospital. He’s . . .” I couldn’t write that he could die, but I didn’t want to lie. “He’s in surgery.”

  I hoped she wouldn’t call until after I’d heard something about Gray’s condition.

  That left JoAnn. I think I left her until last because I knew her first response would be to hurry to my side. It was a wonderful quality in a friend, but this time, I needed some time to figure things out on my own.

  I dialed her number and she picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Addie. Wills, what did I say about touching the knobs on the stove? No. I mean it. No. Or else . . .” She left the threat hanging and said, “How did Gray take it? Did he sign the papers?”

  Her muffled voice said, “Wills, you are testing my patience. One. Two.” She came back on. “Someday he’s going to realize that three is just another number and nothing’s going to happen if I get that far. So, back to you. Do you need me? I—”

  “JoAnn,” I said, interrupting her. “I’m at the hospital with Gray.”

  I could feel her still. All other thoughts faded as she focused on me with such intensity it was palpable over the phone. “What happened?”

  “I went in to give him the papers.” It felt like a lifetime ago that I’d marched into his office, intending to end our marriage. “He was on an important call and when he got off he told me he’d bought me ice cream and it was waiting for me. I’d been so sure this morning, but suddenly, I wasn’t. Before I could make up my mind what to do, or give him the papers . . .” I still wasn’t sure what I would have done.

  “Before I could do anything, he collapsed. It’s an aortic dissection.” There, I remembered the name of it. But what it meant for Gray was still hazy. “It’s some kind of tear in a vessel. They’re doing open-heart surgery.”

  “I’ll be right there,” JoAnn said.

  I could almost hear her starting to list what she needed to do. Find a sitter for the kids, then—

  I tried to cut her off before she’d mentally restructured her whole day. “No, Jo. I’m fine. Well, not fine, but there’s nothing to do but wait. I’ll be here until . . .” Until he made it or didn’t. I didn’t say that part. I didn’t want to talk about the chance that Gray might not make it.

  I knew that JoAnn needed something to do. In a crisis, she needed to be proactive.

  “Can you make sure there’s coverage at the store?” I asked.

  The advantage to running a small local store is we had a lot of hands-on opportunity with our clients. Our one-of-a-kind furniture, both floor models and special orders, had built up quite a following.

  The disadvantage to running a small local store was there wasn’t a ton of backup.

  “I’ll probably be here for a couple of days . . .” Maybe more.

  I hoped more.

  Leaving sooner would mean that Gray hadn’t made it.

  I pushed that thought aside. Gray would make it. He was too strong not to.

  “Don’t you worry about the store,” she said.

  JoAnn had stepped back and left the day-to-day running of the store to me when she had Wills. I had part-time help, but I shouldered most of the load. Right now, I could barely focus enough to make these few calls. Taking care of store business was beyond me.

  “Wills, don’t touch that,” JoAnn shouted, then said, “I’ll take care of everything. You stay with Gray as long as you need to. Don’t worry about a thing. The store’s all mine until . . .”

  She let her sentence fade. She asked, “How bad is it?”

  “From the looks on their faces, not good.”

  “Call me as soon as there’s any word. As soon as he’s out of surgery,” she said.

  “I will,” I promised.

  “Can I do anything else?” she asked.

  Some people asked questions like that by rote, very much like I’d said thank you. But with JoAnn, I knew the offer was sincere.

  “No, Jo, but thank you for asking.” That sounded too formal for us.

  She didn’t seem to notice. “It’s all going to be okay, Addie. You’re not alone.”

  “I know.” She was right. I’d lost both my parents, but I’d never been alone. I’d always had Gray and JoAnn.

  “Thanks, Jo,” I managed.

  She hung up and while I knew she’d meant what she said, it didn’t alter the fact that I felt alone.

  Utterly and absolutely alone.

  I’d done all I could do. Now all I had left to do was wait.

  “You should have let someone come down and sit with you,” the gentleman across the way said. “This is my wife’s seventh trip to the hospital in the last year. It’s easier to wait when you’ve got support.”

  Before I could say anything he gave an inelegant snort and offered me a wry smile. “I know, I’m sitting here by myself lecturing you about having support. I had people with me for the first few surgeries. When someone’s got a chronic condition and requires frequent trips to the hospital, it’s hard on family and friends.”

  I didn’t ask what his wife’s ch
ronic condition was. That would have been intrusive. I simply said and truly meant, “I hope she’s okay.”

  He nodded. “She’s a strong woman. She’s sweet and eternally optimistic, to the point that most people might miss that strength. But it’s there.”

  I thought about the last time Gray and I were in this hospital. He’d been strong that time.

  I wanted to just sit and not think. I didn’t want to remember what we’d once had and lost.

  But the gentleman in question obviously wanted to talk. “I’m James with an S. James Patterson.” He smiled again as if it were some private joke.

  He must have seen the question in my eyes because he said, “My wife is Anne with an E. Like Anne of Green Gables. When she says her name for someone, she always puts it that way. I’m Anne with an E. I started saying I’m James with an S to tease her.”

  He seemed comforted by the memory of their teasing.

  “Adeline Grayson. Addie, with an IE,” I said and smiled despite my worry. James with an S had given me that small smile. Until this moment I don’t think I’d ever really thought about what a gift a smile was. But it was a very big gift.

  But as quickly as it had appeared, it faded. I needed a moment to myself. Time to adjust to this new reality. A reality in which Gray was sick. A reality that might include a life without Gray, in a more permanent way than I’d ever intended.

  James nodded, as if I’d said those words out loud as well. “I’m sorry that I’m disturbing you. It’s just hard to sit here with nothing to do but worry. Sometimes I forget there was a time I wasn’t worried about Anne.” Softer, he added, “Sometimes I forget there was a time our lives didn’t revolve around the hospital and doctors’ offices. Sometimes I forget that we were once just a carefree, happy, healthy couple.”

  “Sometimes I forget my husband and I were . . .” Over the last few months, I’d forgotten so much. “Today, I’ve been reminded that we were once a happy couple.” I didn’t say just a happy couple. We’d never been just that. But I knew that we were happy once, just as intellectually, I knew I loved Gray once. “There was a time that I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.”