C Reiss - Sing

He nodded then, with a slight twitch of his hand, indicated the entirety of the cafeteria, and with that twitch, he told me that Jonathan’s life, simply spared wasn’t enough. He would still be relegated to the cafeteria at Sequoia Hospital.

“I’m no martyr,” he said. “My relationship with some of my family is painful. I don’t want any of them leaving this world a stranger.”

“I don’t know if there’s anything I can say that will change his mind.”

“Let me know when you figure it out.”

That was it. That was the deal I was offered. Get Declan in to see Jonathan, give him a heart attack that’ll kill him for sure. Don’t get Declan in, and watch Jonathan die while some brainless mobster down the hall kept a heart alive for someone else.

MONICA

I stood outside Jonathan’s door, listening to the symphony of instruments that kept him alive. I hated them. They intruded, bullying me into remembering my place when he and I were alone together.

He faced away from the door, the tendons of his neck and the line of his jaw pale in the morning light. He turned when I tiptoed in, and held his hand out for me. I kissed it, then his lips.

“Goddess.” His voice was shredded, his breath was audible. I’d die myself if I had to watch him deteriorate like this.

“How do you feel?”

“With you here?” He touched my cheek, his fingertips electric on my face, even in his condition. “Like fucking, but probably a bad idea.”

“I have a headache anyway.”

“How does it feel to be Mrs. Drazen?”

“You didn’t need to marry me to protect me from your father.”

“He destroys everything of mine he’s ever touched. And look, he’s already stepped in to get control of you.”

This was going to be hard. How could I bring up seeing Declan now? He’d be convinced his father was a puppetmaster pulling my strings.

“I married you for the right reasons. Not out of desperation.”

“Desperation’s all I have. There’s something unfinished in my life, and it’s us. I needed you to be bound to me, in front of heaven and earth. I’m glad we did it.”

“I’m afraid I gave you permission to die.”

“I don’t need your permission.”

He seemed so collected when he said that, as if he was totally okay with leaving me, and marrying me was just him tidying up his affairs. I felt a spark of rage, and clenched my teeth. But as his thumb stroked my jaw, the anger melted into irritation, then mild annoyance, and into a liquid place that had been the base coat of my anger all day. The rush of sadness that came felt physical in its force, washing over me, pulling me into an undertow of grief. He was dead already. He knew it. A simple fact that I hadn’t come to terms with, holding out this ridiculous hope for a sickening accident. A dead man stroked my cheek, and the awakening between my legs from that touch was a ghastly perversion. I wanted a corpse. He looked ready for a coffin, peaceful at last, hands crossed over his chest, left ring finger bulging and swollen around his keyring band.

I broke like an egg, splatting yolk and clear albumin, eyes falling apart under the weight of my tears, my nose clogged, lungs kicking air in hitched gulps. He touched my tears, but couldn’t do anything else. He could barely lift his own head. I turned my wet, ugly, twisted face onto his palm and let him feel my sobbing contortions.

“Goddess, please,” he said.

But I was past the point of reason. “I’d kill for you, Jonathan. If I could—“

“Shh. That’s enough.”

I couldn’t finish speaking anyway, by breathing was so charged with sobs. I swallowed a pint of gunk that had collected in my throat and squeezed my eyes shut until I stopped crying long enough to get a sentence out.

“If I can, I will,” I said. “You mark my words.”

“Okay. Just, hush.”

“I’m going to suggest something. I don’t want you to have a heart attack over it.” I snapped up tissues and wiped my face. My eyes felt swollen and pained.

“Funny girl.”

“Your father has been in the cafeteria for a week to be near you.”

“Fuck, Monica. No. What did he say to you?”

I put my hands on either side of him and leaned over his face, blocking the light from the window.

“I’ll make a deal with the devil to save you.”

“Don’t. Whatever it is, don’t do it.”

“I’m giving you a reason to live.”

He swallowed hard and stared past me, at the ceiling.

“ You are my reason to live. Fuck.” His lips moved in a litany of fucks that had no sound. They were made of breath and panic. I glanced at the machines, they seemed okay, not that I knew what that meant. They weren’t beeping or honking, the stylus that kept track of his heartbeat was making the same scritchy noise it always did.

“It’s okay,” I said, but was it? I had no guarantee I wasn’t being fucked with royally. I had no idea who I was dealing with. Declan seemed to be a different person to everyone who spoke about him. Who was he to me? And would I find out the hard way?

“I’m stuck here,” he said. “I can’t do anything but trust you, can I?”

“No. You can’t. I love you, you have to know that.”

“I know it. But your decision-making...”

“I decided to wait you out when you left me. I decided to ask you for exclusivity. I decided to let you kiss me on Mulholland Drive. I could go on.”

“Maybe later,” he said weakly.

“Will you do it for me, though? See your father?”

I put everything into the question, and that was a mistake. He shouldn’t see any emotion from me with regard to Declan. I should have played blithe or irritated. But I’d played it honest and I didn’t realize my error until the machines started whining and Jonathan’s eyes closed.

JONATHAN

Fiona had gotten kicked in the chest once, at the riding academy, as she was making a token attempt to learn to check a hoof for splits. The thoroughbred had just gotten annoyed, and Fiona, who never listened to a damn thing anyone said, had been sitting in the wrong spot. She went flying. Two broken ribs and a bruised ego later, she quit riding.

I’d probably never see Fiona again to tell her getting defibrillated repeatedly felt the same as getting kicked in the chest by a horse looked.

Monica stood in the corner, wringing her hands like she wanted to break a bone. She was terrified. I must have gone into arrest at some point in our conversation. I forgot what I’d said.

“How are you feeling Mister Drazen?” asked the doctor, a young guy I’d seen pass through a couple of times. He looked at his chart and barked orders immediately after the question. The number of people in the room had doubled in the minute I was unconscious.

“Like a newlywed.”

“Congratulations.” He listened to my heart, eyes on an instrument panel. “You’ve taken quite a beating. I don’t know how many more times we can do this.”

“What’s the world record? I want to break it.”

“Stop trying to be funny,” Monica said from her corner.

“Joking in this situation is common, Miss,” the doctor said as he scribbled something on the chart, speaking medicalese to the nurse before and after his statement.

“What situation is that?”

My wife was about to verbally cross-check the doctor, I saw it in the fact that she wouldn’t look at me. She only had laser-hot eyes for the guy in the scrubs. As if he could feel her seething, he stopped mumbling nonsense to the nurse and turned to her.

“He needs a heart, Miss.”

“Or what?”

I could see the thrust of this conversation a mile away, even feeling like a bag of shit, with the hiss of oxygen tubes drowning out much of what was being said. If the doctor mentioned, implied, or thought about my death, she was going to go ballistic and get escorted out. I didn’t want her to have to negotiate reentry. Every minute without her was a minute wasted.