“I miss you, sweetheart,” she whispered. “Please try to get better soon, okay? I love you.”
She reached for her bag, then stood from the bed and motioned toward the door. I led the way out into the corridor, and we retraced our footsteps to the car. When we arrived, she pulled out the keys. “I could use a glass of wine,” she said. “Are you up for that?”
“Without a doubt.”
*
We went to a bar in Havelock called Everly’s. It wasn’t too far from the hospital and I had the sense when we walked in that it wasn’t Natalie’s first visit to the place. After ordering our drinks, we found a quiet booth, partially sheltered from the noise.
“Now you know,” she said.
“I’m very sorry for what you’re going through. It must be awful.”
“It is,” she admitted. “It’s like nothing I ever imagined.”
“What do the physicians say?”
“After three months, the chances for recovery are very slight.”
“What happened? If you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll understand.”
“It’s all right. You’re not the first to ask. A year ago last April, for our third anniversary, we spent a long weekend in Charleston. As crazy as it sounds, neither of us had ever been there before and we’d heard so much about it. We left Thursday night. He told me that he felt tired and he had a headache, but who doesn’t toward the end of a workweek? Anyway, we had a nice day on Friday despite his headache, and then on Saturday, he got a fever. It got worse as the day went on, so we went to the emergency room and he was diagnosed with the flu. We were supposed to be heading home on Sunday anyway, so neither of us was too worried about it. But in the car the next day, his fever kept getting higher and higher. I wanted to stop in Wilmington, but he told me to just keep going. By the time we got back to New Bern, his temperature was a hundred and four. We went straight to the hospital, but they didn’t figure out what was wrong with him until the next day. By then, his fever was over a hundred and six, and even with all the antibiotics, the fever just didn’t break. It was a nasty virulent strain. After the seventh day of sky-high fevers, he went into a coma. After that, once the fever finally broke, he was able to open his eyes. I thought that meant we were past the worst, but he didn’t seem to know who I was and…”
She took a sip of wine before going on. “He stayed in the hospital for another month, but after that, it was pretty clear he was in a vegetative state. We eventually found a really good place for him—where we just were—and he’s been there ever since.”
“That’s terrible,” I said, grasping for words. “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been—must still be.”
“It was worse last year,” she said. “Because I still had hope. But these days, I don’t have a lot of hope.”
With my stomach in knots, I couldn’t fathom taking a drink. “Was he the one you met in college?”
She nodded. “Just such a sweet guy. He was shy and handsome, but wasn’t arrogant in the slightest, which surprised me, especially considering how wealthy his family is. They own one of the car dealerships here in town, and two or three others in other parts of the state. Anyway, he was on the lacrosse team, and I used to watch him play. He wasn’t quite good enough for a scholarship, but he was a recruited walk-on and played in almost every game his last two years. He could run like a gazelle and score from almost anywhere.”
“Was it love at first sight?”
“Not quite. We actually met at a formal. I was there with another guy, he had a date, and after his date ditched him and my date had wandered off, we started talking. I must have given him my number because he started texting me. Nothing weird, nothing stalker-like…after a month or so, we met for pizza. We dated the last two and a half years of college, got engaged a year after we graduated, and we married a year after that.”
“And you were happy together?”
“We were both happy,” she said. “You would have liked him. He was such a genuine person, so loving and energetic.” She caught herself. “I’m sorry. Is a genuine person.” She took another sip of wine before looking at my glass. “You’re not having any?”
“In a minute,” I said. “I’m still processing.”
“I guess I owe you an apology. For not telling you straightaway.”
“Even if you had, I’m not sure it would have stopped me from going to the farmers’ market or inviting you over to see the bees.”