Chapter 2 - The Medical File With My Name on It
I stared at the messages until the screen went dark.
For a moment, I wanted to unlock Emily's phone.
I knew her old passcode.
Her birthday followed by the last two digits of the year we'd met.
But I didn't try it.
The phone wasn't mine to open.
Neither was the life she'd built since leaving me.
I sat beneath a framed photograph of a mountain lake and waited.
Twenty minutes passed.
Then forty.
I finally texted David that something unexpected had happened.
He replied almost immediately.
Everything okay?
I looked toward the treatment room.
No. I don't think it is.
David didn't ask another question.
I'm in room 418. Come when you can.
I should have gone upstairs.
Instead, I stayed.
At 3:06 p.m., a woman in dark blue scrubs came out of the room and approached me.
“Are you Michael?”
I stood.
“Yes.”
“Emily asked whether you're still here.”
My chest tightened.
“Is she okay?”
“She's stable.”
It wasn't the answer I wanted.
The nurse smiled reassuringly.
“She wanted her phone.”
I handed it over.
“Can you tell her I'm here if she needs anything?”
“I can pass that along.”
When the nurse disappeared, I sat down again.
Five minutes later, my phone rang.
Emily.
I answered immediately.
“Hey.”
“Michael?”
Her voice sounded exhausted.
“I'm here.”
There was a pause.
“Why?”
I stared at the floor.
“Because I don't want you sitting through this alone.”
“You don't have to do that.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean it.”
“So do I.”
She exhaled.
“They might keep me overnight.”
“What happened?”
“My blood counts aren't where they want them.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“I'm in the right place.”
That careful answer frightened me more than a direct one.
“Can I bring you anything?”
“No.”
“Emily—”
“Michael, please.”
I stopped.
There was something familiar in her tone.
The exhaustion of someone who had already used every ounce of strength she possessed just getting through the day.
“Okay,” I said.
Then, after a moment, “Would it be all right if I came back tomorrow?”
She didn't answer immediately.
“I don't know what that would look like.”
“Neither do I.”
“We're not married anymore.”
“I know.”
“And I can't handle confusing things right now.”
I closed my eyes.
“Then I won't confuse them.”
Another silence.
Finally, she said, “You can visit.”
I gripped the phone.
“Okay.”
“But don't make promises because you're scared.”
I opened my eyes.
“What?”
“Don't promise me forever just because you saw me in a hospital gown.”
Then she disconnected.
I sat motionless.
Those words followed me upstairs to David's room.
He was sitting upright in bed, looking miserable and delighted to be alive.
“About time,” he said.
Then he saw my face.
“Mike?”
I set his coffee beside the bed.
“Emily has cancer.”
David stopped smiling.
He had known us since before the wedding.
He was there when I proposed in a crowded Italian restaurant because I had become too nervous to wait for the dessert we'd planned.
He had helped me move out of the apartment after the divorce.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he asked, “Does she know you know?”
I nodded.
“Where is she?”
“Downstairs.”
“Is she alone?”
“Right now, yes.”
David studied me.
“Sit down.”
I sat.
And for the first time in two months, I told someone the truth.
Not that Emily and I had simply grown apart.
Not that the divorce had been mutual.
Not that we were better off separately.
I told David how I had started coming home late.
How I stopped asking difficult questions.
How I avoided the bedroom when Emily cried because I no longer knew what to say.
I told him about the night I asked for the divorce.
When I finished, he rubbed a hand over his face.
“Mike, you can't rewrite all of that in one afternoon.”
“I know.”
“And you can't make her illness about your guilt.”
That stopped me.
He leaned forward slightly.
“If you want to help her, help her.”
“I do.”
“Then ask what she needs.”
I nodded.
“And if she says she doesn't need you?”
I looked away.
David waited.
Finally, I whispered, “Then I have to respect that.”
That evening, I returned to the internal medicine floor.
Emily had been moved to room 326.
Her mother, Linda, stood outside the door holding a plastic grocery bag.
Linda had always been kind to me.
On our wedding day, she hugged me so tightly that my boutonniere fell off.
But when she saw me now, her face went hard.
“Michael.”
“Hi, Linda.”
She looked me up and down.
“What are you doing here?”
“I ran into Emily.”
“I know.”
“She told you?”
“Yes.”
I shifted my weight.
“I wanted to see if there was anything I could do.”
Linda laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Two months ago, she had to pack up her marriage in a suitcase.”
I swallowed.
“Linda—”
“And now you want to help?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I couldn't answer quickly enough.
She stepped closer.
“Because she's sick?”
I looked at the floor.
“Because I still care about her.”
Linda's expression changed slightly.
“Then I hope you understand how much damage caring about someone can do when it only shows up after they're gone.”
She started past me.
Then stopped.
“Emily left something with me after the divorce.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“A folder.”
“About what?”
Linda hesitated.
“She told me to give it to you if you ever came asking questions.”
My pulse accelerated.
“What kind of questions?”
Linda looked through the small window in Emily's door.
Then she said something that made the whole evening feel suddenly colder.
“Questions about why she agreed to let you go.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a thick brown envelope.
On the front, in Emily's handwriting, were four words.
For Michael, if necessary.
Linda held it out.
But when I reached for it, she pulled it back.
“One thing first.”
May you like
I met her eyes.
“Don't read this unless you're prepared to hear something you may never be able to fix.”
