1
ZANE
“Your wife is in good hands, Mr. Teager. The doctor is seeing her now.”
A middle-aged nurse with the name Mary stitched onto her uniform gently pats my hand. Her eyes shine behind her rimless glasses, hope oozing out from them. She definitely chose a fitting profession.
After giving me another tender smile, she treads out of the waiting room.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm the agitation bubbling inside me. My hand tightens around the iron frame of the partly open window, and the cold metal calms my nerves, but only a little.
When something soft grazes my legs, I look down to find a little girl not more than five years old leaning over the kids’ table next to me, trying to grab a storybook.
I smile as she flashes me a toothless grin with a few red blood spots on her gums.
Looks like someone broke their teeth.
Surprisingly, the emergency waiting room is filled with people on this late Monday morning. Guess nobody here is having a great start of their week.
I rub the back of my neck before running my hand back and forth over my throat. I feel parched, as anxiety at being in such a crowded place sneaks up my spine.
I once again search the pockets of my jacket and come back empty-handed. Fuck! I don’t even have any lozenges.
“Mr. Teager.” Nurse Mary calls my name and waits for me by the door. When I scamper toward her, she says, “Your wife’s checkup is done.”
“S-so soon?”
The old lady’s eyes widen for a beat—just like every-fucking-one else—before she nods.
I’m twenty-eight for Christ’s sake. How long will it take me to get used to people’s reactions to my fucking voice?
With a renewed agitation, I follow the nurse to the emergency ward. She pulls the curtain, and there sits my wife in a white cropped tank top and navy-blue jean shorts. She’s not exactly a stranger to me, giving I see her every day at the café where she works. But I don’t think I’ve spoken more than five sentences to her in total.
The young doctor beside her shakes my hand. “Hi, I’m Dr. Nelson. We performed an X-ray of Mrs. Teager’s wrist, otherwise everything looks fine.” He points toward the hand, which my wife is clutching too close to her chest.
“Are you s-sure she d-doesn’t need anyth-thing else?” The anxiety doesn’t help my stutter, and I stammer like a fool more than usual.
“Not at all. She’s good to go. We’ll email the report and if there’re any questions, you can give us a call. Just put ice on your wrist, Mrs. Teager, and take it easy today.”
After, collecting a mild emergency painkiller from the pharmacy, we return to the hospital parking lot. Once inside my car, I fetch one of the water bottles from the back seat and gulp down half of it.
“Thank you so much,” she says finally.
I grab a second bottle and offer it to her, but she shakes her head.
I rummage through the glove box trying to locate my mint tin, but it’s nowhere in sight. My nephews were in my car yesterday. They must have misplaced it. And as much as I hate being over a barrel right now, I love those kids too much to care.
“Here.” She grabs something out of her purse and opens her palm before me.
I know what they are—honey drops with ginger wrapped in purple packaging that resembles her violet eyes. They’re the complementary sweets in the café where she works.
I grab one and put it in my mouth. The sweet flavor with the sharpness of ginger runs down my throat as I roll the drop around my tongue.
“Thank you so much,” she says again. I nod, hoping the candy can work its magic, which I know is medical bullshit.
“If you weren’t there, I don’t know what would have happened,” she continues, and from the corner of my eye I watch as her forehead creases.
She doesn’t know how glad I am that I found her in time.