I remembered light above me, voices asking me to stay awake, and someone cutting fabric away from one of my legs.
I remembered trying to say my daughter’s name.
Then I remembered waking beneath operating-room lights and realizing I was still alive.
The doctors told me recovery would be slow.
They told me I would need help with nearly everything before I could walk again.
I accepted that because surviving the crash had already felt like being handed back a life I had nearly lost.
What I had not expected was to spend the next twenty-one days waiting for my husband to behave like a husband.
I waited for Caleb to arrive with flowers, clean clothes, or even one kind word.
I told myself he was busy with work.
I told myself he was taking care of Emma.
I told myself hospitals made him uncomfortable, although I could not remember him ever saying that.
Every excuse I created for him bought me another day of hope.
Instead of visiting, he sent short messages.
How long are they keeping you?
What is this going to cost?
Can you sign anything from there?
He never asked whether I was afraid.
He never asked whether I had slept.
He never asked how badly it hurt when the nurses had to move me.
Still, I waited.
When my hospital-room door finally opened and Caleb walked in, relief rose in me before common sense could stop it.
For half a second, I saw only my husband of eleven years.
Then I saw his face.
He entered looking like a man collecting an overdue debt.
“Enough of this drama, Rebecca,” he said from the foot of the bed.
His shirt was perfectly ironed, and his expensive cologne reached me before he did.
“Get up. We’re going home.”
The medication made my thoughts slow, but not slow enough to misunderstand him.
“Caleb, I can’t.”
His jaw tightened.
“Don’t start with me.”
“My legs are broken.”
I looked down at the casts as I spoke, almost believing that if he saw them clearly enough, something human might return to his expression.
“I know what the doctors said.”
He leaned over the bedrail, mint sharp on his breath.
“I also heard the billing department talking about another payment. I’m done throwing money away on this performance.”
Performance.
