Seven Years Waiting for a Fake Marriage novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Room 1456

Elliot goes to the hospital for the boy, and a nurse tells him not to let the boy be alone with his father tonight.

I stood in the motel stairwell with the phone against my ear and listened to my wife cry.

"What happened?" I said.

"A kettle. He pulled a kettle down on himself. It's his shoulder, it's bad, they've got him on the children's floor."

"Is he all right?"

"They're treating him." She drew a breath. "Elliot, I need you to do something for me. Go to the apartment and pack clothes for Russ and for me. And a blanket, the hospital is freezing and Russ gets chills."

"Lorna."

"And make something simple for him to eat. Rice, eggs, anything. He's been here since noon and he can't stand the cafeteria."

I closed my eyes.

Outside the stairwell window the motel sign buzzed, red and then dark.

"I have a tumor in my stomach," I said evenly. "The smell of hot oil makes me throw up. I can't cook in that kitchen."

She was silent.

Behind her I heard Russ, his voice thin and wet from crying.

"Lorna, don't ask him. It's not fair to him. I'll manage on my own. I can sit here without eating."

"You don't have to be brave for me," she told him, softly.

Then her voice came back to me, hard.

"Fine. Forget it."

The line went dead.

A minute later my phone buzzed with a text.

Door code 0718. Children's floor, Room 1456. Bring a blanket if you can find one. Please.

I read it twice.

It was the first time in seven years she had written please to me.

It didn't make me want to go back to that kitchen.

But a six-year-old with a burned shoulder was lying in a hospital bed, and I was the nearest grown man who wasn't in the way.

I didn't pack Russ's clothes.

I took the divorce papers, left my coat open because the wind had dropped, and walked the twelve blocks to the hospital.

It was a small brick building with a hand-lettered sign taped to the elevator.

The children's floor was quiet.

At the nurses' desk, a woman in green scrubs looked up from a chart.

She was young, with a short dark ponytail, freckles across her nose, and a pen behind her ear that she had clearly forgotten.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Sam Tidwell."

"Are you family?"

I thought about it.

"No," I said. "I'm a friend of the mother."

She watched me a second longer.

"Fourteen fifty-six. The end of the hall. He's asleep. Dressing's fresh, they gave him something for the pain."

"Thank you."

"Sir."

She had a name tag. HANNAH.

"You've been traveling," she said. "You're gray. Sit down when you can."

I almost laughed.

It was the only kind thing anyone in this town had said to me.

Room 1456 had one bed and two chairs.

Sam lay on his side with his knees pulled up and the left shoulder wrapped in white gauze that ran from his neck to his elbow.

His mouth was open in sleep, and the double swirl of his hair stuck up on the pillow.

Russ sat beside him with Sam's small hand in his own, and was shaking.

Lorna had pulled her chair to Russ's side, and she had her arm around his back.

She was looking at Russ's face.

She wasn't looking at the child.

"I turned around for one second," Russ whispered to her. "I only turned around."

"I know. It's not your fault. You couldn't have stopped it."

She rubbed his shoulder in slow circles.

Neither of them had noticed me.

I stood in the doorway and watched a boy sleep alone between two grown-ups.

Sam's eyes opened.

They were gray, and they moved straight to the door.

For a moment he looked at me.

Then his eyes slid to Russ's hand wrapped around his, and he shut them again, tightly, and held very still.

I knew that kind of stillness.

I had practiced it myself at nine, when my father was in a mood and I wanted to be forgotten.

It was a small thing to notice, and I didn't know yet what to do with it.

"Elliot." Lorna had seen me. She stood, and her face changed. "You came."

"I came for the boy."

Russ let go of Sam's hand slowly and wiped his glasses.

In the hallway behind me, the nurse named Hannah had stopped at the door with a clipboard.

She waited until Lorna and Russ turned to each other again.

Then she stepped close to me and spoke low.

"I'm off at seven, so I can't stay with him tonight. Whoever sits with that child, make sure it isn't only his father."

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