“It’s okay.” Her voice was barely audible. She was carrying the Coach handbag he had gotten her for Christmas two years before, meant as a peace offering as their marriage was coming apart, piece by piece. The room had emptied out completely. They were alone with the hospital smell and the Christmas garlands.
“Will, I can’t…”
He suddenly felt such heaviness. She could have just stood and walked away, simple movements that were both miracles in his new life. But she sat there and spoke.
“I’m not like you,” she said quietly. The harshness fell from her eyes, replaced by tears. “I’m not noble. I have a job. You have a…calling.” She didn’t speak the words like a compliment. He gripped her hand but she pulled it away. “I can’t put my whole life on a shelf to, to…put it right for the dead. I’m not a damsel in distress anymore, so what am I to you? I’m not a murder victim.”
“Cindy…”
“I can’t…” She waved him away, pulled into herself. Her face became red and tears streaked her cheeks.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not!” Her eyes were red and fierce. “You’re always so goddamned reasonable! It’s not okay. None of it is. And you know it! You’ve never even forgiven me…”
“That’s not true.” He felt a sucking hole in his middle. He reached for her again, but she pushed away.
“Wait, Will. Please. I’m not…I can’t. You and I, we’re just too different. I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?”
“I thought I could. I had thought it all through. I wanted to wait for all this to be over. I prayed you would be all right, and I’m so glad you came through the surgery. But this is never going to be over. Don’t you get it? Will, I can’t do this. I can’t take care of you, be your nurse.”
“I don’t need a nurse!”
“I can’t give up the rest of my life. I’ve given up so much already, for you, for Sam, and he won’t even talk to us. I have a career. I’m still young. I’m entitled to a life, you know.”
He had met her at a bank robbery. She was a teller and he was a young patrolman. Somehow he had found the courage to come back and ask for her phone number. She had been a young woman with a shy smile and a two-year-old baby. They had married six months later. It had all happened too fast. Eighteen years had happened too fast. He now recalled how, two days after his surgery, a nurse was helping him from the bathroom back to the bed. He had been constipated for a week, and suddenly he shit on the floor. Just shit on the floor. He couldn’t move fast enough to get back to the toilet, or even take a step. He could just move enough to see, in the mirror, the horrible brown cord snake out of him onto the floor, and to see Cindy’s expression of disgust. He knew she was thinking:
