Chapter 4: Wet Steps

At two in the morning I was back on the ER steps, waiting for my wife to come off shift.

The steps had just been mopped.

Water stood in the grooves of each one and shone under the emergency light.

I held the wooden box with my grandfather's watch in both hands, because I did not trust myself to put it down.

The doors opened and Clara came out in her coat with her bag over one shoulder.

The department head walked beside her, a tall woman with her hair pinned flat, and two nurses came out behind them.

Clara saw me and stopped on the top step.

"Not here," she said.

"I won't take long."

"I'm off shift. I'm tired. Go home, Hayes."

"Come home with me." I said it loudly enough that the nurses looked up. "Tonight. We can talk about all of it in the kitchen."

"That house isn't mine."

"It's your name on the mortgage."

"It's your name on everything." She started down, one hand on the rail. "That's what you told me the first week."

I had told her that.

I had been joking, and I could not remember what the joke was.

The department head put herself half a step between us without making it look like anything.

"Mr. Garrison," she said. "Visitors wait in the lobby, and my residents don't take personal calls on shift. I'll say that once."

"Understood."

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