Seven Years Waiting for a Fake Marriage novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Hotel

Lorna begs him in the street and Russ quietly warns him to leave, then Lorna calls: Sam has been burned.

Lorna's face went white and then red.

"Sam, go back to your room," she said. "Now, please."

The boy looked at me one more second, then walked away on his dinosaur socks.

Russ got up and followed him without a word.

"It's a picture from a conference," Lorna said to me. "He found it. He's six, he gets ideas."

"Which drawer?" I said.

She didn't answer.

I pulled on my coat and slung my bag over my shoulder, and a sharp pain went through my stomach.

"I've said what I came to say. I booked a hotel near the bus stop. When you've signed, call me and I'll come get the papers."

I left the slippers by the door where I had found them.

I was halfway down the dormitory stairs when I heard her running behind me.

"Elliot! Elliot, wait!"

I kept walking, out through the glass doors into the wind.

The desert air tasted of dust, and the light was already going orange over the parking lot.

She got in front of me and caught my wrist with both hands.

Her eyes were red.

"No," she said. "We are not getting divorced. I won't sign it."

"Lorna."

"Don't you love me anymore? Seven years, and you come here and you throw a paper at me?"

Two women from the station were crossing the lot with trays of samples, and they slowed down to watch.

Lorna didn't notice them.

"You're sick," she said. "You can't wait on treatment. I'll take leave. I'll stay with you and I'll be there for the surgery."

My chest tightened, because it was the thing I had wanted her to say for seven years.

It wasn't enough to carry me through the door of a hospital.

"Then put in your transfer," I said. "Today. Ask them to send you home and I'll hear you out."

She let go of my wrist.

"I can't do that right now."

"Why not?"

"The project is at a critical point. If I leave this month, three years of data go to someone else."

"Is that the same critical point as last March?"

She flinched.

"Please, Elliot. Give me a little time."

"I gave you seven years."

She stood there with her hands open and nothing in them.

I walked around her.

The hotel was a two-story motel with a gravel lot and a sign that buzzed.

I paid for one night and sat on the edge of the bed with my coat still on.

I texted my mother. Got in. Tired. Will call tomorrow.

She had made me promise to message her the moment I arrived, because she didn't trust the trip and she didn't trust my wife.

She wrote back right away. Eat something. Did you see her?

I looked at the screen for a while.

Then I typed: I saw her. I gave her the papers. Mom, there's a little boy here who calls her Mom.

The reply bubbles came and went three times.

Finally she wrote: Stay where you are. I'm looking at flights.

I told her not to, and she didn't answer.

I went down to the lobby for a bottle of water.

Russ was sitting in one of the plastic chairs near the front desk.

He had changed his shirt, and he held a paper bag on his knee.

"Elliot," he said. "Can I have a minute? I brought you dinner. It's soup. It's easy on the stomach."

The soup was still warm.

I didn't take it, but I sat down across from him because my legs would not hold me any longer.

"Lorna's in a state," he said. "She hasn't eaten. She doesn't know what to do."

"She could sign."

"She won't."

He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

He seemed exhausted and decent, and I thought so at the time.

"Listen," he said quietly. "I'm going to say this as a friend. Take the morning bus. Leave the papers with her and go home and get your treatment. Don't stay in this town."

"Is that a request?"

"It's advice." He put his glasses back on. "People here know each other. Things get complicated. If you stay, the boy ends up paying for it, and he's six."

I thought he meant Sam would be pulled between two adults.

I thought he was protecting a family.

"I'll leave when she signs," I said.

Russ stood.

He put the bag of soup on the chair beside me, nodded, and walked out through the glass doors without looking back.

I sat there until the smell of the broth made my stomach turn, and I carried the bag to the trash.

My phone rang before I reached the stairs.

It was Lorna, and she was crying, hard.

"Elliot, it's Sam. He's been burned. We're at the hospital in town. Please, I need you to come."

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