My Wife's Last Call I Never Answered novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Fast-Track
In an ER observation room Hayes asks his wife to move his first love up the line; that night a lab report tells him of the miscarriage and Clara hands him divorce papers and the fifth call.
I asked my wife to move my first love up the line in her own emergency room.
Philippa had sprained her wrist on the hotel stairs.
She had a rehearsal in the morning and a concert at the end of the week.
Her triage number was forty-seven, and the waiting room was full.
I walked straight past the desk and into the observation area, looking for a doctor I could pull aside.
My wife was in the second chair.
She was in blue scrubs with her white coat folded on her knee and an IV line taped to the back of her hand.
The bag on the pole above her was an iron drip, but I didn't read it.
I didn't think about it at all.
Her eyes went to the grey cashmere scarf around Philippa's neck.
She had given me that scarf last winter.
I had put it on Philippa in the car because her hotel room was cold.
Something tightened in my chest.
My mouth was already moving.
"Resting on shift, Clara? Good," I said. "Then you can get Philippa seen faster."
Two young nurses at the supply cart stopped what they were doing.
Clara pulled her mask up a little higher and closed her eyes.
She did not look at me.
I did not leave.
Philippa's number was forty-seven, and I wasn't going to make her wait.
I tapped the IV pole with one finger. "Clara. Give me your department head's number."
She opened her eyes and held mine for a long moment.
Her face was pale and her lips were chapped.
"The desk is at the front," she said.
"You work here. Make one call."
"No."
I looked at the bag on her pole, then back at her.
"An IV in your own ER," I said. "People will think you wanted to be found."
One of the nurses made a small noise in her throat.
Clara turned her face to the wall.
Behind me, Philippa put two fingers on my sleeve.
"Hayes, forget it," she said softly. "Don't make it hard on her."
I smiled, put my arm around Philippa's shoulders, and walked her out.
In the corridor her phone lit up in her good hand.
I saw my mother's name on the screen, Dorothea.
Philippa turned the phone face down against her coat.
"Please don't tell your mother I'm in town," she said. "Not yet. I'm not ready to see her."
I said fine and thought nothing of it.
My mother was visiting next week, and I needed Clara to play the loving wife for three days.
That was the only reason I had called her the night before.
I had asked what time she got off so I could pick her up, and in the background Philippa had said, "The soup's getting cold."
Clara said, "No need," and hung up.
In three years she had never once hung up on me.
I was waiting for the elevator when one of the young nurses came running down the hall.
"Mr. Garrison?" She held out a folded sheet. "Dr. Tillman's paperwork from last month. It's filed with you as her emergency contact. She never picked it up."
"What is it?"
"I think you should read it," she said. "Somebody should have made you."
I read it standing there with Philippa waiting beside me.
Patient: Clara Tillman. Pregnancy loss at eleven weeks. Emergency surgery for hemorrhage.
The date at the top was the night I flew to Vienna.
I put Philippa in a taxi and told her I'd call.
I did not go home.
At nine I was standing outside the hospital staff housing with the paper in my hand.
Clara came across the lot in her coat, tired enough that she walked close to the wall.
"How long were you planning to hide this from me?" I said.
She took the page out of my fingers, folded it once, and put it in her pocket.
"The baby's gone," she said.
"You should have told me."
"I was going to. I found out a few weeks before you left."
"Then why didn't you?"
"You were already packing for her."
I had nothing to say to that.
She took a long envelope from inside her coat and held it out.
"I signed these in the recovery room," she said. "I'm moving in here. In January I start a fellowship in Baltimore. I'm leaving you, Hayes."
"You're upset."
"I called you five times that night."
My hand stayed at my side.
"I was at a concert," I said. "I told you."
"You declined four." Her voice was level. "The fifth time, a woman picked up."
She pushed the envelope against my chest until I took it.
"Ask her what she said," Clara said, and went inside.
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