Chapter 5

The door clicked shut.

Lucas came back to the bed. His voice was barely there.

"I'm sorry. For what she said. For what my mother said. None of that will happen again." He stopped. "Can we start over? I'll do whatever you need. Whatever you say. Please."

I looked down at the sheet.

"Sign the papers, Lucas."

A long silence behind me.

"No."

His voice shook.

"I won't sign. What I did to you — there's no coming back from that, I know. But you need someone with you right now. Let me be here. Let me make it right."

"I don't need you."

I reached for my phone on the bedside table and called a care agency. I arranged round-the-clock support, a night carer, everything I needed. Lucas stood beside the bed the entire time and didn't speak.

When I hung up, he said quietly:

"All right. I'll be in the corridor if you need anything."

He left.

For the week I was in hospital, he didn't once go home. Every day he borrowed the kitchen equipment at the hospital café and made meals — soups, things he knew I liked. He never brought them in himself. He'd hand them to the carer and wait.

I didn't eat any of it. The carer tipped it out.

The consultant came on his rounds and stood at the foot of my bed looking at my file.

"Given the patient's prior health and the circumstances of the incident — extended cold water exposure, substantial blood loss — the uterine damage is significant." He set the file down. "Further pregnancies will be very difficult. Possibly not viable."

The ward was quiet.

I nodded.

"Thank you, doctor."

After he left, I heard something heavy slide down the corridor wall outside.

The carer leaned toward me and said, gently, that my husband was in a bad way — that he hadn't eaten properly in days.

I looked out the window at the trees.

"When someone hurts you over a low fence," I said, "you can climb back over. But when the heart's gone, even a stumble is enough to end things."

The carer didn't say anything after that.