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“Good,” I said, moving the linen sheet aside, pleased to see he was dressed in his own pajamas instead of the hospital gown. I checked his range of motion—it could be improved, although pain after a TKR was often severe—as well as the dressing.
“If the physical therapist says you’re moving independently with the crutches and can get up and down the stairs, we can look at discharging you soon.”
Mr. Edwards grunted. “Good. You know how much I hate hospitals.”
“Most people do,” I said, heading back to the door. Before stepping out, I glanced over my shoulder and added, “I’ll be back to check on you later. Leave me a few of the hard ones.”
A rumble of laughter from Mr. Edwards followed me into the hallway, where the usual hum and intermittent beeping of monitors filled every silent crack and corner. My morning rounds were just starting. I had another three to see in the ward and thereafter—
My phone suddenly rang.
I fished it out of my pocket, read the caller ID, and groaned so loudly a surgical nurse walking past stopped abruptly and frowned. “All good, Doc?”
“All good, Jackie,” I said, though things were far from good. What was that saying again? When it rained, it poured. The last person I needed to force a civil conversation with now was my ex-fiancée. “Vicki,” I said, pressing the phone to my ear. “I’m at work.”
“I need you to come and fetch the couch tomorrow.”
Not even a hello. You’d think everything between us would be more amicable considering there were no affairs, no financial disputes. Just two people with clashing views of their futures.
Not that it was that simple. It never was.
“I’m sorry, Vicki. I can’t make the trip to St. Helena this week. I’m busy. I’m overloaded with patients as it is, and you know I do most of the elective surgeries for the week on Wednesday.”
“Tomorrow’s Tuesday, Alex,” she snapped.
I was well aware. Just like she was well aware I did a fair amount of prep for the surgeries the day before.
“Well, make a plan, Alex. I need the couch gone before the new one arrives. The order’s set to come on Wednesday.”
“I don’t get why you don’t just keep that one,” I said. “It’s perfectly fine.”
“It’s too big,” she puffed.
“It’s a modular couch. You can just move one of the sections elsewhere. Or sell it. Do whatever you want with it.”
I had bought that couch specifically for us right after we’d moved in together, with only one thing in mind. A couch for a family. A mom, a dad, and two kids. But that was the problem. The biggest of all the small problems, the one that had sliced open our pretty relationship like it was a fragile vein. Nothing we did could ever stitch it back together.
Vicki didn’t want kids.
I did.
And you’d think not wanting kids would be an important thing to mention when dating had become serious enough for Pinterest walls dedicated solely to engagement rings. But Vicki hadn’t seemed to think so. Except the longer she went without telling me about her secret, the more snappy she’d become, pointing fingers when something broke in the house, complaining of my hours, working herself up over every little thing, until one day she’d finally confessed.
Things had ended right after.
“I want you to come and fetch it,” she said in that same, sharp, no-nonsense tone I’d grown to both love and hate. “That’s what I want, Alex. Is that so hard?”
Incredibly. Extremely. I rubbed two fingers against the space between my brows, hoping to still the headache that was slowly creeping in, and sighed. “Fine. I’ll send someone to pick it up, alright?”
“Youneed to come out Alex. There’s a few other boxes you need to sort through,” said Vicki, her voice less sharp. “It’s been two months. You need to come and fetch your stuff.”
There was no need. Everything I had left behind was just pieces of a past I had no business holding onto. But Vicki didn't seem to understand that. She seemed to think I was being silly for not caring about parting with my old tennis rackets, with the signed baseball glove she'd bought me for our first anniversary, or the antique coffee grinder she'd gotten me for my birthday last year.
Whatever I was going to pick up tomorrow, I’d just end up dropping off at Goodwill.
Still, I relented, in the same passive way I had accepted the end of our relationship, because deep down, hidden beneath everything I had imagined my life would look like at thirty-eight—a job, a wife, a house, and kids—, I'd probably always known it wasn't ever meant to be.
I sighed, “Fine. I’ll come over late this afternoon and I’ll ask Sam if I can use his truck.”
