Page 75 of Single-Minded
I fling the go-bag and the garment bag in the backseat, and slide my tote and my tired body into the driver’s seat. It’s hard to believe that I was in bed with this man less than twelve hours ago. Now it seems like a lifetime.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” says Daniel.
“Tomorrow,” I reply coldly. He hands me the bouquet of pink roses, which are beautiful and delicate and surprisingly fragrant. I toss it in the passenger seat, and he gently closes my car door. I pull out of the parking space and drive away, never looking back.
65
It’s never good when the phone rings at two o’clock in the morning. Someone has almost always died.
“Alex, can you come right away to the hospital? There’s been an accident.” It’s Fred, Michael’s father. “Sarasota Memorial.”
“I’ll be right there,” I say. Fred won’t tell me what’s happened over the phone, which leads me to fear the worst. As quickly as I can, I get dressed, putting on jeans and a T-shirt, and pulling my hair up into a ponytail. My hair is still slightly damp from the long shower I took before bed. I finally got the tension knots out of my neck after almost an hour, and now I feel them coming back. I drive to the hospital in silence and darkness, my brain generating dozens of gruesome scenarios, the worst of which is that my best friend in life has died without me by his side. I am too numb to cry, too numb to call anyone. I feel like the only soul on the road.
I hardly slept at all before Fred’s call, my mind shadowed with imaginary arguments between Daniel and myself where I scream at him over and over again,How could you do this to me?My brain produces no answers, of course, just the same heartbreaking questions over and over again on a cruel loop.
Pulling into the ER parking lot at Sarasota Memorial, I search in vain for Fred’s car. I find an open spot and pull in, and rush inside the emergency room as fast as I can on wobbly, slow-moving legs. My heart is pounding so hard I think it might explode. Can you have a heart attack at thirty-one?
“Michael Miller,” I say to the nurse at the front desk. She checks something on her computer and then waves me over to the waiting room.
“Are you family?” she asks.
“I’m his wife,” I lie.
“Someone will be out to speak with you shortly.” She gives nothing away, which I guess is probably a job requirement.
“Is he alive?” I blurt out.
The nurse’s face tenses but her voice remains exactly the same, “Please be seated, someone will be out to speak with you shortly.”
66
I close my eyes and pray silently, something I never do. I cannot bear the thought of living my life without Michael. We were supposed to grow old together. Even though we aren’t still married, I think we both assumed that was how it would work out.
I call Fred, Michael’s dad, and his phone goes straight to voice mail. Leaving a message, I tell him I’m in the waiting room. Next, I try texting, having no idea if Fred even knows how texting works. Again, I let him know where I am, just in case the message gets through to him.
My worry-addled brain spits out disastrous possibility after possibility of all the terrible things that could have happened to Michael. Car accident, poisoning, hotel bathtub electrocution. I remember a time not so long before when I halfheartedly wished for Michael’s demise, and now I’m filled with guilt over the possibility that I somehow had a hand in whatever tragedy has befallen him.
I check my phone every few seconds searching for a response from Fred. An infomercial about prostate health blares from the television bolted to the wall overhead. The waiting room is like a collection of walking dead that time of night. Strange, quiet people with dark circles under their eyes and looks of despair, filling out endless paperwork. A small dark-haired child, who looks to be about three, snuggles with her mother while trying to get comfortable against the hard plastic chairs.
In twenty minutes, no one has come to get anyone. I walk to the nurses’ station again.
“I’m here for Michael Miller,” I say. “Can someone please tell me what’s happened to him? Where is he?”
As the nurse checks her computer screen, Fred appears through the large double doors that lead inside the hospital. His large body appears older than his years; his eyes are bloodshot and his skin is ruddy from crying. I’ve never seen him look so distraught, not even when Michael’s mother died.
I rush into his arms, “Oh my God, Fred. What happened? They haven’t told me anything.” He hugs me tightly, not letting go for a long time, sobbing into my shoulder. It must be bad, very bad.
“Michael was in a car accident coming home from the airport tonight. A drunk driver broadsided his car as he went through an intersection,” says Fred. His emotions overtake him again and he sobs without being able to speak for a few moments. “The police found syringes in the back of the woman’s car.” I feel myself going woozy and struggle to say focused while Fred attempts to regain composure.
“He’s in surgery now,” Fred continues, and I let out a breath of relief. Michael is alive; no matter what else might have happened, he’s still alive. Relief floods my body and I begin to cry. “He’s got a shattered pelvis, four broken ribs, his arm is broken, his hip was dislocated, one of his lungs is bruised, his spleen ruptured, his sternum is fractured… concussion… he was impaled by a piece of metal in his abdomen… there’s more but I can’t recall exactly,” he trails off.
“Is he going to be okay?” I ask. Jesus, with all that, Michael is lucky to still be alive. I can barely bring myself to ask the next question. “Is he going to live?”
“The doctors won’t say,” he cries. “They’ll know more once he’s out of surgery.”
“Do they know how long it’s going to take?” I ask tearfully. “When we’ll be able to see him?” I’m paralyzed with disbelief. How could this happen? What was that driver thinking? Why did it have to be Michael? Fred takes my hand and leads me through the double doors to the surgery waiting room. It’s significantly smaller than the ER waiting room, with soothing art that looks like it came off an assembly line, and small brown sofas instead of hard plastic chairs. It’s empty except for one person, a man with dark hair, crying into his hands. He looks up as soon as Fred and I enter the room, and instantaneously I feel like I might throw up.
It’s Santiago, the man Michael made a sex date with on the night of our divorce party.
