Everyone else in the waiting room sat slumped over their phones. It was Charlie’s first time in an ER waiting room. He wanted to win the waiting room. He wanted to be the most grief-stricken and worried boyfriend possible so when the door swung open and the doctors came out with bad news, they’d know he really, deeply cared.
Also, his book was in the car. It was Home, the companion to Gilead. He hadn’t started it yet, but he always carried a book in his bag, just in case. He’d said that to Sylvia this morning. “Just in case.”
“In what cases?” she’d asked. “If we’re going to go out for lunch, then go for a hike, then come right back here, when would you have time to read anything?”
Maybe they’d come to a really, really beautiful place and sit awhile and relish each others’ love and company in the open air for a while, but then Sylvia would get antsy and want to explore, but he wouldn’t want to, so she’d go off and he’d want something to do other than get anxious about not wanting to go exploring with her, about preferring to be the sort of man who wants to sit at a beautiful place in nature and read. “I don’t know,” he said instead.
“He’s always done that,” called his mom from the other room. “Always,” she said, padding towards the mudroom from her office, hair in a loose bun. The strap of her left sandal was broken, and thwapped against the ground as she walked. “He’d always say the same thing, ‘just in case!’ In what case, I’d always think, just like you said. In what case!” And they all laughed together at his silly fears of being caught in boredom, and they slipped on their sneakers and hopped into the car and Charlie put his tote into the backseat and it still had his book in it.
Now, sitting bookless in the hospital waiting room, he had found such a case. It felt karmic. Divine power forcing him to change, to trust that life will occupy him. It all happened because he brought his book: Sylvia running from him, clambering over the gate, climbing four rungs up the power line ladder before her foot slipped and she fell, in a cracking heap, her arms crinkling to her sides and her head thumping against the grass and her legs crumpling at such unnatural angles it made vomit erupt into Charlie’s throat now, in the waiting room, just thinking about the pain. He’d grabbed her arms and tried to help her up. Her jaw steeled, as if she’d hated him for helping her, him for witnessing her failure. She couldn’t move without him, though. Every time she tried, she cried out. He laid her on the grass beneath the power lines and called for help, and waited with her, trying to soothe her as she, despite her best efforts, whimpered in pain. This was the worst moment of his life, he thought. She was in too much pain to think the same.
Charlie looked down at his feet now, tapping on the waiting room carpet. He refused to go outside and get his book, just in case.
Will Sussbauer is a senior in Jonathan Edwards College.