Page 93
“I am not married.”
“I didn’t ask if you were married.”
The answer I used does not apply anymore. He is not my patient. There is a repaired cart in Room 2, and a kiss in a dark reception area after the discharge note had already gone to Maren, and a message on my phone sitting exactly where I told him to leave it.
“There is a man.”
The sentence changes the air before Elena moves.
She reaches for the pad. “Is he a citizen?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Thirteen weeks.”
One eyebrow goes up above the blue frame. “That’s precise.”
“I had his appointment schedule.”
I have the other one as well. The home game on Thursday. The road trip through Florida at the end of the month. I did not go looking for it and I know it anyway, the way I know which of his shoulders takes contact and which one he protects with his whole trunk.
Her pen pauses.
“Former patient,” I say. “The care relationship ended before anything happened.”
The explanation is necessary. It is also not the thing she asked me.
“He is more than a former patient.”
Elena looks at me rather than at the file. “What’s his name?”
I know what happens when I say it. Nothing legal. No form appears and no clock stops. I have the absurd sense regardless that the name belongs to the part of my life the blue folder cannot reach.
“Colt Riley.”
She writes it underneath mine.
Astrid Nilsson.
Colt Riley.
Two separate lines, and the space between them is no wider than any other space on the page.
My body does not accept that.
“You are going to say marriage.”
“I’m going to explain why it’s on the list. I’m not going to tell you to do it.”
“Good.”
“If the relationship is genuine and you both choose it, a citizen spouse can petition for you as an immediate relative.”
“And work authorization?”
“Marriage doesn’t authorize work. Neither does filing, on its own.”
