I began to understand that knowing Maggie for years did not mean I knew what had happened to her.<\/p>\n
It was an uncomfortable thing to admit.<\/p>\n
I had shared a home with her, watched her raise our son, and built a life around the ordinary certainty of her presence.<\/p>\n
I knew how she took her coffee.<\/p>\n
I knew which side of the bed she preferred.<\/p>\n
I knew she disliked making a fuss when she wasn't feeling well.<\/p>\n
But none of those things explained the medication in her blood.<\/p>\n
They didn't explain the dehydration.<\/p>\n
They didn't explain why she had stopped responding to my calls.<\/p>\n
I had to separate what I knew from what I feared.<\/p>\n
The doctor had given me facts.<\/p>\n
Everything else was still a question.<\/p>\n
I repeated that to myself whenever my thoughts began to run ahead.<\/p>\n
Facts first.<\/p>\n
Questions later.<\/p>\n
It was the only way I could keep myself from imagining an answer simply because I wanted one.<\/p>\n
I thought about our son.<\/p>\n
Maggie had gone to Knoxville to help him.<\/p>\n
That was the reason she had given me, and I had accepted it.<\/p>\n
I still didn't know what kind of help he needed.<\/p>\n
I hadn't asked for details before she left.<\/p>\n
I had assumed he would explain everything when I spoke to him.<\/p>\n
But the calls I had made went unanswered.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether he was busy, unable to answer, or aware of what had happened to his mother.<\/p>\n
I couldn't honestly choose among those possibilities.<\/p>\n
I tried calling him again.<\/p>\n
The phone rang without an answer.<\/p>\n
I lowered it slowly.<\/p>\n
I wanted to feel angry.<\/p>\n
Anger would have given me something definite to hold on to.<\/p>\n
Instead, I felt lost.<\/p>\n
I had no evidence that our son had done anything wrong.<\/p>\n
I also had no explanation for the silence that had brought me here.<\/p>\n
I refused to confuse those two things.<\/p>\n
Still, I needed to know where he was and whether he knew what had happened.<\/p>\n
I left the phone beside me and watched Maggie.<\/p>\n
The room had become familiar in a way I never wanted it to be.<\/p>\n
I knew the sound of the door opening.<\/p>\n
I knew where the nurse usually stood while checking on her.<\/p>\n
I knew the place where I could set my cup without getting in anyone's way.<\/p>\n
I had begun to measure time by visits from the medical staff rather than by meals or television programs.<\/p>\n
Every time someone entered, I looked up.<\/p>\n
Every time they left, I returned my attention to Maggie.<\/p>\n
I didn't expect a sudden miracle.<\/p>\n
I only wanted some sign that she was moving toward recovery.<\/p>\n
When the doctor came in, I asked whether Maggie had shown any change.<\/p>\n
The doctor explained that the team was continuing to watch her condition and that the medication's effects could take time to resolve.<\/p>\n
I listened carefully.<\/p>\n
Then I asked the question that had been bothering me since our first conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf she wasn't taking this medicine as a prescription, could it have been given to her another way?\u201d<\/p>\n
The doctor didn't dismiss the possibility.<\/p>\n
She also didn't claim to know that it had happened.<\/p>\n
She explained that the test results couldn't establish the circumstances by themselves.<\/p>\n
More information would be needed.<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
It wasn't the answer I wanted.<\/p>\n
But it was an honest one.<\/p>\n
I had spent too much of my life believing that if I asked the right person the right question, I would eventually get a clear answer.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the answer was that nobody knew yet.<\/p>\n
I was beginning to understand that.<\/p>\n
After the doctor left, I looked at the phone again.<\/p>\n
I thought about calling someone else.<\/p>\n
I could have reached out to a relative and told them that Maggie was in the hospital.<\/p>\n
I could have asked whether they knew anything about her plans.<\/p>\n
But I didn't want to spread information before I understood what I was telling people.<\/p>\n
I also didn't want Maggie's condition turned into a family discussion while she was unable to speak for herself.<\/p>\n
So I waited until I could think more clearly.<\/p>\n
I looked at her face.<\/p>\n
There was nothing in her expression that could tell me what she remembered.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether she knew I was sitting beside her.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether the sound of my voice meant anything to her in that moment.<\/p>\n
I leaned forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt's me, Maggie.\u201d<\/p>\n
I paused.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou're not alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The words felt inadequate.<\/p>\n
I said them anyway.<\/p>\n
I remembered how often Maggie had reassured me about things I worried over.<\/p>\n
She had never needed a long explanation.<\/p>\n
Sometimes she would touch my shoulder and tell me we would deal with whatever came next.<\/p>\n
I had always found comfort in that.<\/p>\n
Now I wished I could give her the same certainty.<\/p>\n
I couldn't promise that everything would be fine.<\/p>\n
I couldn't explain what had happened.<\/p>\n
I couldn't even tell her when she would be able to go home.<\/p>\n
All I could do was stay.<\/p>\n
So I did.<\/p>\n
I sat beside her and tried to keep my mind on what was in front of me.<\/p>\n
A bed.<\/p>\n
A blanket.<\/p>\n
A chair that hurt my back.<\/p>\n
A phone that had become far too important.<\/p>\n
And the woman I had married, lying there while strangers worked to help her recover.<\/p>\n
I had never felt so aware of how little control I possessed.<\/p>\n
The feeling made me impatient.<\/p>\n
Then it made me quiet.<\/p>\n
I began to see that those were two different ways of reacting to the same fear.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to spend the next hours blaming myself for not driving her to Knoxville.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to accuse our son without knowing what had happened.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to invent a story about the medication before the facts were clear.<\/p>\n
I wanted Maggie to recover.<\/p>\n
I wanted her to be able to speak.<\/p>\n
And I wanted to listen without deciding in advance what her words would mean.<\/p>\n
That was all I could promise myself.<\/p>\n
For once, I would let the truth arrive before I tried to explain it.<\/p>\n
I began to understand that knowing Maggie for years did not mean I knew what had happened to her. It was an uncomfortable thing to admit. I had shared a … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37898"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37914,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37898\/revisions\/37914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}