The next morning, I asked for a mirror.<\/p>\n
The nurse looked at me as though she wasn't sure that was a good idea.<\/p>\n
"Are you certain you want one right now?"<\/p>\n
"Yes, please."<\/p>\n
She brought me a small hand mirror and placed it on the table.<\/p>\n
I held it with both hands.<\/p>\n
The woman looking back at me seemed older than she had a few days earlier.<\/p>\n
There was a dressing above my eyebrow, and bruising had begun to spread around it. My skin looked pale, and my eyes were swollen from crying.<\/p>\n
I studied my reflection for a long time.<\/p>\n
Then I put the mirror down.<\/p>\n
I wasn't worried about how I looked.<\/p>\n
I was wondering how a person could spend years trying to keep a marriage alive without realizing that she was the only one holding on.<\/p>\n
Dr. Reed came to see me later that morning.<\/p>\n
He asked about my pain and checked the injury to my head.<\/p>\n
I answered his questions.<\/p>\n
Then he pulled up a chair.<\/p>\n
"Have you been able to rest?"<\/p>\n
"A little."<\/p>\n
"Have you spoken with your husband?"<\/p>\n
I shook my head.<\/p>\n
He didn't push me to explain.<\/p>\n
Instead, he told me what I needed to know about recovering from the fall and what symptoms I should report if they appeared.<\/p>\n
I listened carefully.<\/p>\n
When he finished, I asked him whether I could have the flowers removed.<\/p>\n
He glanced toward the vase.<\/p>\n
"Of course."<\/p>\n
A nurse carried them away a few minutes later.<\/p>\n
The card remained on the table.<\/p>\n
I had thought about throwing it out, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.<\/p>\n
Not because I wanted to keep anything Victoria had given me.<\/p>\n
I wanted to remember how easily she had dismissed what happened.<\/p>\n
For years, I had made excuses for her.<\/p>\n
She was protective of Dominic.<\/p>\n
She had been through difficult things.<\/p>\n
She had a strong personality.<\/p>\n
I could find a reason for almost anything she did, provided the alternative meant admitting that she had treated me badly on purpose.<\/p>\n
That morning, I ran out of reasons.<\/p>\n
I asked the nurse whether the hospital had a telephone I could use.<\/p>\n
She brought me one.<\/p>\n
I called Dominic.<\/p>\n
It rang several times.<\/p>\n
Then he answered.<\/p>\n
"What is it, Audrey?"<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
Not hello.<\/p>\n
Not are you all right?<\/p>\n
Not where have you been?<\/p>\n
Just a question that made it sound as though I had interrupted something important.<\/p>\n
"I'm in the hospital."<\/p>\n
There was a pause.<\/p>\n
"I know."<\/p>\n
I gripped the telephone.<\/p>\n
"You know?"<\/p>\n
"Mother told me you fell."<\/p>\n
He sounded irritated.<\/p>\n
I waited for him to ask what the doctors had said.<\/p>\n
He didn't.<\/p>\n
Instead, he asked whether I had told anyone about the argument.<\/p>\n
I stared at the wall.<\/p>\n
"What argument?"<\/p>\n
"The argument with Mother."<\/p>\n
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.<\/p>\n
I had fallen down an entire staircase, struck my head, and lost my pregnancy.<\/p>\n
Yet Dominic's first concern was whether his mother might be blamed.<\/p>\n
"I didn't call to discuss an argument."<\/p>\n
"Then why are you calling?"<\/p>\n
I pressed my lips together.<\/p>\n
I wanted to tell him everything.<\/p>\n
I wanted to say that I had been pregnant, that our child was gone, and that I had spent the night hoping he would appear at my bedside.<\/p>\n
I wanted to ask how he could lie beside another woman while his wife was in the hospital.<\/p>\n
But I couldn't make myself say any of it.<\/p>\n
The words felt too precious to give to someone who had already shown me how little he cared.<\/p>\n
"I wanted to know whether you were coming."<\/p>\n
He exhaled sharply.<\/p>\n
"Audrey, I'm busy."<\/p>\n
I heard a faint sound in the background.<\/p>\n
A woman's voice.<\/p>\n
Then laughter.<\/p>\n
I knew it was the same woman I had heard in our bedroom.<\/p>\n
My hand tightened around the phone.<\/p>\n
"Are you with her?"<\/p>\n
Dominic didn't answer immediately.<\/p>\n
That silence told me more than a denial would have.<\/p>\n
"Don't start this again," he said.<\/p>\n
I looked down at the blanket covering my legs.<\/p>\n
"I'm in the hospital, Dominic."<\/p>\n
"And I'm telling you that I'll deal with it when I can."<\/p>\n
When I could.<\/p>\n
I had spent years waiting for him to have time for me.<\/p>\n
Time to listen.<\/p>\n
Time to defend me.<\/p>\n
Time to make me feel like his wife rather than an obligation he had inherited.<\/p>\n
I was tired of waiting.<\/p>\n
"All right," I said.<\/p>\n
He seemed surprised by how quickly I agreed.<\/p>\n
"I'll call you later."<\/p>\n
He ended the call before I could answer.<\/p>\n
I held the telephone against my ear for a few seconds after the line went silent.<\/p>\n
Then I returned it to the nurse.<\/p>\n
I didn't ask him to call again.<\/p>\n
I didn't send a message demanding an explanation.<\/p>\n
I didn't tell him about the baby.<\/p>\n
I told myself it was because I was too tired.<\/p>\n
That was only partly true.<\/p>\n
The rest was that I no longer wanted to give him another opportunity to hurt me.<\/p>\n
That afternoon, Dr. Reed returned with the paperwork I needed to review.<\/p>\n
He explained my treatment and the instructions I would need to follow after leaving the hospital.<\/p>\n
I signed where he indicated.<\/p>\n
My hand moved slowly across the page.<\/p>\n
I had never thought much about signatures before.<\/p>\n
They were marks people made when they agreed to something, confirmed something, or accepted responsibility for something.<\/p>\n
My signature had helped establish my marriage.<\/p>\n
Now it was recording the beginning of a life I hadn't planned.<\/p>\n
I wondered what my father would have told me if he had been there.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether he would have recognized how much of myself I had given away.<\/p>\n
Mostly, I wondered why I had believed that enduring pain was proof of love.<\/p>\n
The following day, a hospital administrator brought me another set of papers.<\/p>\n
These concerned my discharge.<\/p>\n
I read each page carefully.<\/p>\n
I asked questions when something wasn't clear.<\/p>\n
It was a small thing, but I wanted to make every decision for myself.<\/p>\n
For so long, I had let Dominic speak first and explain things on my behalf.<\/p>\n
He had answered questions that were directed at me.<\/p>\n
He had made arrangements without asking what I wanted.<\/p>\n
He had told his mother details about our private life that I had never agreed to share.<\/p>\n
I had accepted all of it because I thought that was what marriage required.<\/p>\n
Now I was learning how much I had forgotten about being an individual.<\/p>\n
When the administrator left, I asked the nurse whether anyone had called for me.<\/p>\n
She checked the information at the desk.<\/p>\n
"No one new, Audrey."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
I wasn't surprised anymore.<\/p>\n
The hospital room became a place where I could hear my own thoughts.<\/p>\n
I thought about the house.<\/p>\n
The staircase.<\/p>\n
The bedroom.<\/p>\n
The woman who had been there with Dominic.<\/p>\n
I thought about Victoria's card.<\/p>\n
Then I thought about the child I had never held.<\/p>\n
That was the part I couldn't escape.<\/p>\n
I had never heard a heartbeat.<\/p>\n
I had never seen a tiny face on a screen.<\/p>\n
I hadn't even told the father.<\/p>\n
My grief had no photographs, no name, and no memories I could share with anyone else.<\/p>\n
It existed only in the future I had imagined.<\/p>\n
I cried that evening.<\/p>\n
Quietly.<\/p>\n
When I finished, I washed my face and drank a glass of water.<\/p>\n
Then I sat beside the window until the sky darkened.<\/p>\n
I had no idea what would happen next.<\/p>\n
I only knew I couldn't return to the marriage as though nothing had changed.<\/p>\n
I couldn't walk into that house and pretend the stairs were just stairs.<\/p>\n
I couldn't sleep beside Dominic and act as though the woman in our bedroom had never existed.<\/p>\n
And I couldn't accept another bouquet from Victoria in place of the truth.<\/p>\n
I had spent years trying to become indispensable to people who treated me as replaceable.<\/p>\n
I wasn't going to keep doing it.<\/p>\n
The next morning, I asked the nurse to help me contact someone who could explain my options for ending the marriage.<\/p>\n
She gave me the information I needed.<\/p>\n
I wrote it down.<\/p>\n
My handwriting was shaky, but every letter was legible.<\/p>\n
For the first time in days, I felt something other than pain.<\/p>\n
Resolve.<\/p>\n
I didn't know how to rebuild my life.<\/p>\n
I didn't know where I would live or what I would do about the things I had left at home.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether Dominic would even notice that I was gone until he needed something.<\/p>\n
But I had finally stopped waiting for him to choose me.<\/p>\n
That was the first decision I made without asking anyone's permission.<\/p>\n
The next morning, I asked for a mirror. The nurse looked at me as though she wasn't sure that was a good idea. "Are you certain you want one right … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40901","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\/40901","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=40901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40921,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40901\/revisions\/40921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}