Page 16 of The Final Cut

The nurse finishes at the pump and steps toward the computer terminal. “You can stand closer. Just watch the lines.”

My legs move because she told them to.

I go to the side of the bed. Cal’s hand lies on top of the blanket, swollen a little around the IV tape, bruised at the knuckles. He has old scars there from tools and fishing hooks and the time he tried to fix the garbage disposal without turning the breaker off. I used to trace those scars when I was little and half-asleep on the couch, counting them like constellations that belonged only to us.

I take his hand.

His skin is warm. Dry, not clammy.

The relief hits so hard my knees bend. Ever shifts in the doorway, a tiny movement, ready to catch me if I fall. I don’t look back. If I look at any of them right now, I will lose the thin grip I have left.

“Hey,” I whisper.

The ventilator breathes for him.

I clear my throat, then feel stupid for doing it. “It’s me.”

Nothing changes on his face. The monitor keeps making its steady electronic promises. The nurse types something into the computer.

“Can he hear me?” I ask.

Embarrassment burns through me before the question finishes leaving my mouth. Everybody asks that. I know everybody asks that. I’ve seen it in movies, watched nurses standing beside families who asked it, watched them giving them the careful answers you give when medicine does not let you promise what grief wants.

The nurse looks over at me. She is older than I first thought, with tired eyes and a kind mouth. “We don’t know for sure,” she says. “I always tell families to talk. Hearing can be a stubborn thing.”

I nod too many times, a little desperate. “Okay.”

“Keep it simple. Familiar.”

Familiar.

As if I can reach back and gather fifteen years of breakfasts, arguments, check-ins, oil changes, birthdays, nightmares, bad report cards, good calls, stupid jokes, and every ordinary piece of life he gave me when no one else could.

I bend closer to his hand.

“Cal,” I say, low. “You have to wake up eventually because I’m mad at you, and you know how I hate unresolved conflict. I like to argue til the bitter…end. God…damnit.”

The nurse’s mouth softens.

I swallow the knot rising in my throat. “Also, your pancakes are better than mine. I tried once when you had the flu, and they came out weird in the middle. You said they were fine because you’re a liar.”

The green line jumps and dips. I watch it until I understand the change means nothing. Movement. Machine. Body. All the small facts that do not add up to hope unless I force them.

“You missed a lot,” I tell him. “Or you didn’t. I’m still figuring that part out. Either way, I need you to wake up so I can yell at you properly.”

My thumb rubs the back of his hand, staying clear of the tape.

“Delia was there,” I say.

The name changes the room for me. It shouldn’t. She isn’t here. She is somewhere with Isabel’s people, alive and unreachable and angry enough to save me while still making it hurt.

“She tried to get me away from the chapel. I think she knew enough to be scared. I don’t know if she meant to help me all along or if she changed her mind when it mattered. I guess that counts.”

My voice thins. I pull it back.

“You would tell me not to decide everything while I’m upset. Then I’d tell you I’m not upset; I’m furious, and you’d give me that look over your coffee.”

A tear slips down my cheek. I wipe it fast with my shoulder because my hand is still holding his, and I’m not letting go.