• His World

    He sat at the edge of her bed, neither of them speaking. At times she would part her mouth, as if to say something, but shut it again, and go back to staring at the ceiling. He wanted to talk to her, to hear her talk to him, but words were hard to choose. The room was quiet and still. He was afraid to touch her, afraid she would break in two. She was afraid to look at him, afraid his eyes would betray his hate for her.

    He had been at work, when the time came. He had been away from his phone when she called him, when she called her family, when she felt so alone. The hospital was only five or so blocks away, she had thought. She tried to make it on her own, afraid to be alone when it happened.

    Now, a day later, she lay in a hospital bed, feeling blank and empty. The room reflected how she felt. No flowers, no stuffed animals lined the windowsill. There was one waste basket, empty besides a blue card. It was crumpled, but the words ‘IT’S A BOY!’ still seemed to scream from the far corner of the room, where the basket was pushed against a wall.

    The doctors had told him about her complications. He refused to believe what the catty nurses said about her, how she should have known better, and only someone with mental problems would try to walk when a baby was coming. How she had done it on purpose. He refused to believe, his tiny gentle wife was capable of something so cruel as to intend to . . .

    If anything, he had snapped at them. If anything, it’s my fault. I should have been there for them. For her . . . He swallowed, back in her room.

    In all fairness, he didn’t match her, didn’t desearve her. She was out of his league. Soft, delicate, his wife was so very small. He was gruff, hard, a giant beside her.

    He didn’t notice her turn her head, her long black hair fanned out on the pillow, the color clashing with her pale skin, the paler sheets.

    “It’s not your fault.”

    Her voice was so soft, kind and patient. Always patient with him. Her eyes were clear again, not glazed as they had been. There was no blame in her face or voice.

    He wanted to cry then. She never put herself first. When she was pregnant, she still did house work, stopping only when he begged her to, for the baby’s sake. He had yet to see her use the call light to ask for pain medication.

    The petty, catty nurses had always reminded him that she was in so much pain, whenever they got the chance, whenever he walked by their station. As far as he could figure out, the walk and ‘the trauma’ had messed up her insides. She looked so serene, so calm. She didn’t look like she was in pain, she just looked sad and tired.

    Still . . .

    It was a relief to know she didn’t blame him. He knew he was at least partly to blame, she would be right to blame him a little, but that simply wasn’t her nature.

    She was very weak, he could tell, but she still lifted her hand to touch his face. He held her hand, her’s lost in his larger one. Her other hand, resting on her chest, fingered a rosary made of pure white pearls. He knew she was religious. He had tried to share that with her, but his questioning nature betrayed his lack of faith.

    She’s praying, he thought. What is she praying for?

    Moving slowly, she took his hand between hers, pressed the rosary into his palm. No words were spoken. He kissed her and left her to rest. The nurses were always quick to make him leave the second visiting hours were over.

    Once home, he took the rosary out again and stared at it for an unknown amount of time. Long enough to make him tired. She had tried to teach him the prayers that went with it, but he could never remember the pretty poems or the beads that represented them. He woundered, why would she give him something he couldn’t use properly? He knew she wanted him to pray for her, the problem was, he didn’t know how.

    Unsure of himself, he closed his eyes and asked the God his wife worshiped to be with her. Sleep took him, but it was interrupted by the raging storm that had decended upon the town where he lived.

    The dampness and the scattered fallen tree limbs did not detere him from getting up the next morning and heading once again for the hospital. A few phone lines were down, or so the radio said.

    He stopped by the grocers before stopping at the hospital. He bought her a bouquet of tiny red roses, her favorite, certain to make her smile. On the card, he wrote something special, his pet name for her, ‘To My Angel.’

    Not at all in the mood for the nurses remarks, he walked up a different staircase, one that didn’t lead to the nurses staton, but on the other side of it, nearer his wife’s room.

    He counted the numbers to her room, and found it, making sure he looked at least somewhat put together before opening the door.

    The bed was made.

    The trash was emptied.

    The room was empty.

    There was a hand written note he happened to see, just before he fell to his knees.

    The nurses, just thinking about how the phone lines had been down when they tried to reach him, heard his strangled sobs, and the vast majority went to find him. This was what they had feared. He didn’t know, he had no idea.

    The note, propped against the pillow, was in his wife’s handwritting, a curving script he would always remember and cherish.

    I’m so sorry.

    He had lost her. He had lost his world.