A Broken Heart

She could hear the crack of his ribs, a good sign, since it meant that the paramedic was pushing down hard enough. The trainees in the CPR certification courses don’t like to hear that the ribs tend to break when you pump the heart. Andrew had told her that on their fifth date, when she asked him to tell her something interesting about his job, and the fact had stayed lodged in her brain every time she had watched Grey’s Anatomy. 

Crack crack crack, the sound rattled around her ears like pennies in a jar. She watched, unable to move and close to hyperventilating, as the man kneeled next to Andrew, who was sprawled out on the concrete, the woman who came with the man pumping air into Andrew’s mouth with a bag made of plastic. The device she used had a name, though Laura didn’t know it. They never told you what it was in the medical dramas she watched on TV. She could only watch them when Andrew wasn’t around, as he always pointed out how unrealistic those hospitals were. The sun beat down on her head, and she felt very suddenly that she would vomit all over the sidewalk, brown and yellow sludge, but she swallowed it back down, burning her throat. She didn’t want to cause any more trouble.

“Load him up,” the man said as another ambulance arrived, the extra paramedics spilling out onto the street. The man continued the compressions, straddling Andrew’s stomach as the other paramedics lifted them on a stretcher into the back of the ambulance. Laura forced her legs to move towards her car, vaguely catching that they were taking him to Holy Spirit. Why were they taking him there when HersheyMed was closer? Before she could ask, the ambulance fired up its siren and took Andrew away, leaving Laura surrounded by horrible, suffocating silence.

They had been going to get Thai food. They were halfway there, walking because the day was warm, when it happened. It was a new place, a little hole in the wall, but Andrew insisted that it had great reviews. Laura wanted to get cheesesteaks. He kept going on about not falling into old habits and expanding their horizons. The restaurant was authentic, edgy, a place that twenty-one-year-olds would frequently inhabit after drinking too much. Laura had looked at the menu, unsure why Andrew was so excited. They didn’t even have pad thai.

The world around her looked like a slideshow, where every time she blinked a new slide would blip into place. She was standing in the street and blink she was buckling her seatbelt in her boiling hot car and blink she was driving on the highway. She didn’t remember typing the address into the GPS, but her body drove anyway, without asking her brain for permission. Her breath was short, like she was drowning, even though there was oxygen all around her, the air conditioner blasting it in her face, and it was a beautiful day.

The hospital was fucking freezing. Goosebumps rose over her skin and her whole body shivered uncontrollably. It was ninety-eight degrees outside, a Pennsylvania heatwave in the already hot month of July, and the only pieces of fabric covering Laura’s body were her shortest pair of jean shorts and a tank top. She thought about asking someone for a blanket, but the nurses and doctors were incredibly busy, running around so fast that Laura wondered if they even got a moment to breathe. 

Besides, she thought, what if I did ask for a blanket and a patient died because some nurse was distracted in a utility closet? 

The questions the doctors had asked her whirled around in her head. What was Andrew’s age? Thirty-two. Did he take medication? Just Omeprazole every day, for his stomach. What was his blood type? Laura had no idea. God, was that something that a girlfriend of three years was supposed to know? She didn’t even know her own blood type.

We think it was an abdominal aortic aneurysm, the doctor had told her. Laura had nodded along as the doctor asked her whether Andrew had been experiencing stomach pain. He had, but he assumed it was his stomach issues flaring up. She had told him to hold off on the spicy food, but he couldn’t resist a good hot sauce. The doctor nodded and wrote something down in a chart, and then had her sign a consent form to perform open heart surgery. Her hands shook wildly as she tried to sign her signature, suddenly feeling the urge to rip the fucking paper to shreds.

Why would this happen to Andrew, of all people? The man was obsessed with his health. She had asked why once, early in their relationship. He didn’t have any family history of illness and didn’t have any issues apart from his bad digestion. His father had died of natural causes and his mom, apart from the normal effects of age, was otherwise fine. His siblings were also in perfect health, no chronic conditions, no risk of any illness. He had paused to consider her question, and then joked that he just really liked vegetables. He had always had energy, so much that it would sometimes explode out of him and cause him to buy a Peloton or try to learn rock climbing. He did not like to sit, and he did not like to stay still.

She had spent so many mornings watching him drink his daily green smoothie, while she had eggs and toast. He went to the gym every other day, while she barely had the energy to go once a week. He biked to work and hiked for fun. He was obsessed with his “heart healthy” cookbook that she got him for the first Christmas they spent together. He had gotten her a DVD box set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, her favorite show.

Snap.

Laura was pulled from her thoughts. A woman who sat a couple seats away from her snapped the purple scrunchy around her wrist with a snap snap snap. Laura glanced at her, annoyed at the repetitive sound. The woman twirled the scrunchy in her fingers, while she stared ahead at the metal door the doctors would walk out of if they had any news. The woman’s right leg bounced rapidly, creating a tap tap tap that was starting to drive Laura crazy.

Why would a woman who looked close to fifty have a scrunchy? Laura hadn’t worn one since she was seventeen. Scrunchies were for younger girls, girls who weren’t being bogged down with rent payments and horrible desk jobs and potential hospital bills when one of you had terrible insurance. Laura pulled her legs to her chest, tucked her knees under her chin, like how a child would sit while playing hide-and-seek.

Andrew had joked once that his insurance was so stingy that they would argue that having a leg was a pre-existing condition if you broke it. He then joked that maybe they should get married, so he could get on her insurance. She had laughed at that, and then went to make dinner. It had been roasted salmon that night, with roasted broccoli and potatoes. The meal had been delicious, so good that they had only focused on eating, so good that they didn’t say one word to each other till it was time to go to bed.

“Excuse me, do you have a phone charger I could borrow?”

Laura snapped her head up, her neck stiff, her joints almost frozen. Had she been asleep? How much time had passed since a doctor had come to talk to her? The panic she had felt this afternoon had settled into a dull dread that sat heavily on her shoulders. The only good thing about the panic was that time seemed to pass quickly, where now time dragged along like an aging slug, slow and never ending.

She looked up at the woman with the purple scrunchy. Her face looked soft, and she had wrinkles around her eyes. Laura silently pulled her charger out of her purse and handed it to the woman.

“Thanks,” said the woman, leaning down to the plug next to Laura’s chair. Oh dear. Laura hadn’t expected the woman to sit down right next to her, but it was too late. It would be rude to move now.

“I’m Hannah, by the way,” said the woman. She tried to plug the charger cord into the phone but missed several times.

“Laura.”

“So why are you here, Laura?”

This is my favorite spot for lunch, she wanted to say, but this woman, this Hannah, hadn’t done anything wrong except bother Laura when she wanted to be alone. All Laura wanted right now was to walk out of this icebox of a hospital, warm her skin up in the sun, and go lay down in bed forever, but she couldn’t, because of Andrew and his heart. 

“My boyfriend is in there,” said Laura, staring at the door where the doctors would come out.

“I’m sorry.”

They sat in silence, as silent as you can be in the busy, noisy bustle of the emergency room. Most people in the waiting room were looking at their phones, but occasionally a woman would yell out for assistance, or a man would moan loudly, the noise making Laura uncomfortable. The man looked old and frail and very very thin. 

Why is no one coming for him? thought Laura. Were there lots of other Andrews in the ER today, so many that an old man in pain would be left to fend for himself? Laura swallowed and turned to Hannah.

“Why are you here?”

“My husband was in an accident. He’s in surgery now.” Hannah pulled on her scrunchy again, snapping the fibers against her wrist.

“I’m so sorry,” said Laura, wishing she had never asked.

“It was a car wreck. They’re working on his leg right now.”

“I’m sure he’ll pull through.”

Hannah smiled, but Laura could tell it was forced.

“‘Crushed’ was the word the doctor used. Not broken, crushed. The doctor said she would try her best, but…”

Hannah trailed off, looking away from Laura. 

“I’ve been reading about wheelchairs. Before my phone died.”

“Oh,” said Laura.

“Did you know a person can die if they have to sit in a badly fitted wheelchair?”

Laura shook her head.

“It’s true. It’s like wearing the wrong size shoes that give you sores on your feet, but these sores on your body from a bad wheelchair are worse.”

“Really?” said Laura, now begging the universe to send a doctor out so that she didn’t have to listen to this conversation anymore.

“Yeah. They can get infected, and in a few months a perfectly healthy disabled person will be dead before they turn forty.” Hannah was now talking very fast. “You think I’m exaggerating, but there was this woman on an airplane, and the airline broke her wheelchair. A custom wheelchair can cost more than a car, and the airline gave her this shitty replacement chair while they fought tooth and nail not to have to replace her custom one. She got a sore, and it got infected, and now she’s dead, ’cause the airline didn’t want to replace a chair.”

Hannah snapped the scrunchy so hard against her wrist that it left a red mark. She rubbed the tops of her thighs with her hands, back and forth, back and forth. “I read about it on Twitter.”

The man moaned again, and Laura noticed that he was sitting in a dingy looking wheelchair. 

Laura shifted, her backside starting to fall asleep. She suddenly found the waiting room entirely unbearable, and she stood up.

“I’m gonna go get some coffee from the cafeteria,” said Laura. She paused for a moment and looked down at Hannah. The woman’s eyes went wide in panic, and Laura felt a pang of sympathy shoot through her. Though it might have been the nausea still sitting in her stomach. She sighed, and then gave the woman a smile. “Would you like to come?”

The coffee was burned, but Laura could mask the taste if she dumped in enough sugar and poured in enough milk. She wrapped her hands around the cup, let the steam warm up her face, let the hot liquid burn the roof of her mouth. Hannah sat across from her, nursing an English Breakfast tea. She had an unopened chocolate parfait in front of her, an amalgamation of pudding, cake, and whipped cream. It looked disgusting, and Laura wondered how she could even eat right now.

“Are you sure that you don’t need some food? You look pale,” said Hannah as she popped off the lid of the parfait and dug her spoon into the brown and white goop.

“I’m fine,” said Laura. She couldn’t look at the dessert without feeling the sensation of rising nausea. She took a sip of her coffee, and it settled her stomach slightly. The drink was so acidic that it hurt the back of her jaw. Andrew would have never accepted it. He would have ordered from his favorite local coffee shop and had it delivered. A cappuccino for him, and caramel latte with extra whipped cream for her. She could do that. She should do that. A treat for him when he woke up. But could he even have caffeine after surgery? She better not risk it. She chanced a glance at Hannah’s parfait.

“Is that even good?”

“Not really,” said Hannah, “But I always get one when I’m waiting in a hospital.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

“Just twice before. Once when I was a kid, my brother broke his arm. He needed surgery, so my dad took me to the cafeteria and let me get anything I wanted. An amazing prospect for a six-year-old.” 

Hannah smiled and took another bite.

“Then my daughter had an emergency appendectomy, two years ago. She gave me her scrunchy to hold, because she was worried that she would get blood on it.” Hannah snapped the scrunchy again. “I never gave it back.”

Laura’s head snapped up.

“Oh God, I am so sorry.”

“Oh, she’s not dead,” said Hannah with a laugh, “I just liked the color. And the feel. The stupid thing makes me feel better.”

The two women fell into silence, absorbed by chocolate pudding and bad coffee. Laura closed her eyes and saw Andrew on the ground, his eyes wide, his skin pale. She forced her eyes open.

“So, tell me about your boyfriend,” said Hannah as she finished her parfait.

“He’s having heart surgery.”

“No, I mean, tell me about him. What’s he like?”

What was Andrew like? How could she possibly explain to this woman, this stranger, what Andrew was like? How could she explain how much he had loved to wait till she woke up before he got out of bed, watch her eyes flutter open, kiss the top of her forehead before he went to brush his teeth. How they had their best conversations in bed, particularly late at night, limbs tangled together. How on their first date, dinner and a movie, he had pointed out all the AED devices while explaining how to use them. He taught CPR for a living, and at this point he saw the AED devices in a building before he saw the fire exits. She had thought that it was incredibly odd, but Andrew had been so excited and so knowledgeable that she ended up finding it cute.

After their first time in bed together, while Laura lay on the soft blue sheets, Andrew had kneeled next to her, naked as she was, staring intently. Show me, she whispered in the haze of their lovemaking. He laced his hands together, one on top of the other, and gently laid his palm perfectly between her breasts. He pushed, gently, barely, but it was enough to make her heart beat five times faster. 

As their relationship grew, he started to whisper the secrets of the course into her ear, like the fact that CPR alone very rarely brought a still heart back to life. He told her about the times he felt an unconscious person suck air back into their lungs and about how he once felt a person’s skin go cold under his palms. He had cried when he told her that story, and she had held him close to her, feeling his warmth, his muscles, his soft skin. She, in the throes of new passion, promised to get certified as soon as possible. She absolutely meant to. She never did.

Things had been wonderful, romantic, fantastic until one day, halfway through the second year of their relationship, she had woken up and realized that she hated the smell of his daily smoothie. The feeling was so strong that it shocked her, but she couldn’t get over how it gave the kitchen a lingering scent of raw kale and spinach. She also realized that she wanted to throw away his blender, which was so loud in the morning and could be heard through the walls. Then, a few months afterwards, he slowly began to leave the bed before she woke up, citing needing to get to the gym early or an early meeting for work. Sometimes she woke up upset that she didn’t get his morning kiss, and sometimes she woke up relieved.

When he collapsed on the sidewalk, Laura had stood there, frozen, unable to speak, unable to move, while a nearby teenage girl had thrown herself next to Andrew, started to pump on his chest, while an older man waiting for the bus called 911. After the paramedics took over the teenage girl told her friend about how she had just passed the Red Cross Babysitter Training Course. All Laura could do was think about how for the past three months she had woken up in bed, alone.

“I was going to break up with him today,” she said, clutching her mug so hard it might have shattered.

“Oh,” said Hannah, her eyes wide, her mug of tea paused right at her lips.

The wave of nausea hit Laura like an unwelcome hug, and she dropped her mug, spilling coffee all over the table, and almost knocked her chair over as she ran to the nearby restroom. She barely made it into the stall before the vomit shot out of her mouth, all the coffee and milk and sugar reappearing as brown and yellow sludge. Her throat burned, her mouth tasted terrible, but her stomach felt calm for the first time all day. She sat on the floor of the restroom, her head in her hands, breathing deeply. 

When the strength in her legs returned, she rinsed her mouth out in the sink, and as she spat out the water, she thought about how going to get cheesesteaks would have been better than Thai. She didn’t want to ruin a new restaurant for him.

She found Hannah mopping up the coffee with paper towels when she finally returned to the table. Hannah looked up at her as she approached, and silently handed her a peppermint tea in a to-go cup.

“Helps settle the stomach,” she said as she tossed the clump of soggy paper towels in the trash. 

Laura sipped the tea, grateful for the strong mint flavor that masked the lingering taste of vomit.

“Are you okay?” asked Hannah.

Laura, unexpectedly, gave a small laugh.

“Couldn’t be better.”

Hannah paused, then continued speaking.

“You know, Jack—that’s my husband—we didn’t always get along. There were times where I thought I hated him. And vice versa.”

Hannah took another sip.

“It was usually ’cause there were other problems in our life, unemployment, a house that was falling apart, sick parents. There were even times when I thought about divorce.”

Hannah drained the rest of her cup.

“But you know, those times do go away. You learn to talk to each other again, you go to couples counseling. You get a better job, your money troubles get better. You have a wonderful child, and you see the best parts of him in her personality.”

Hannah got up and threw her trash away, and then walked back to the table.

“It’s really none of my business, but maybe give yourself some time.”

Laura chose to focus on the heat coming from her peppermint tea, but the annoyance she felt earlier was starting to return. Who was this woman to come and tell her what to do with her relationship? Who brags about staying in a shitty marriage? Just another older couple who stayed together for the kids. What a fucking nightmare.

This is what I need to do, she thought. Then she turned to Hannah and spat out her words.

“You’re right, it’s none of your business. It’s different when you’re not married. It’s different when you’re not old.”

Hannah said nothing but took a step back from where Laura was sitting.

“I overstepped, I’m sorry.”

Laura felt a tinge of guilt and drank the rest of her tea so that Hannah wouldn’t see her blush.

“We should probably head back to the waiting room,” said Hannah.

Laura didn’t want to. She didn’t want to go back to the moans and the cold and the deep, sad silence. The cafeteria had the murmurs of noise and conversation. It had shitty coffee to keep her warm. The waiting room was awful, uncomfortable. The waiting room was where Andrew’s doctor would be looking for her. She glanced at Hannah’s face and saw the same desire to leave that Laura had felt when Hannah had been blabbering about wheelchairs.

“Okay,” she said.

As they walked back Laura simply stared at the floor, her steps slow, methodical. They walked through the windy hallways of the massive hospital, silently, attendings and nurses jostling past them. She felt the dread return to her shoulders as they approached the door to the waiting room.

I don’t want to go, she thought as Hannah pushed open the door.

A blast of cold hit her as they walked in, and the goosebumps returned to assault her skin. They sat back down in the horrible, uncomfortable chairs, the silence building a wall between them, when a doctor came out of the doors, causing several heads to perk up, bodies shifting in excitement and fear. But it was Hannah who looked the most scared, her face pale, her lips almost sucked into her mouth.

“Mrs. Carve? Your husband is out of surgery. Can you come with me, please?”

Laura was jolted by the fact that Hannah had a last name; for her she had only been Hannah. She watched as Hannah grabbed her purse and got up to follow the doctor, and Laura noticed, with a twinge of sadness, that Hannah hadn’t even looked at her, hadn’t even said goodbye. She felt a sudden terror, as she hadn’t asked Hannah what exactly she was going to do. Would she stay with a one-legged man? What if she didn’t love him anymore? What would she do if she slowly felt the love drain from her body over the course of a year, unable to stop the leak?

She leaned her head against the wall behind her chair and closed her eyes. She would probably never see Hannah again. She drifted off, her body fighting the horrible seat, and dreamed about wheelchairs.

“Miss Samuels?”

Laura jerked awake. She looked up into the eyes of an older male surgeon, still in his scrubs. He smiled at her, and his eyes were kind.

“Your boyfriend is out of surgery. He’s still asleep, but you can come and see him now.”

“Oh.”

Laura got up, her stiff joints screaming, and followed the doctor like a child follows a parent when they’ve broken the rules. They walked through the doors, and the surgeon led her through a labyrinth of halls. 

“Is he okay?” asked Laura.

“The surgery went well. He didn’t lose that much blood, and we were able to remove the aneurysm. We need to keep him for observation, and a full recovery will take some time, but barring any complications you should be able to take him home in a week.”

“Some time?”

“Typically two to three months,” said the surgeon. 

Months?

Laura thought about how she had been looking at available one-bedroom apartments on her phone. The habit had started a few months ago, as a fantasy.

His dad is dead, and his mom is eighty. His brother lives in California, his sister in Nevada. 

Laura could barely keep her thoughts in her head for a moment before they were replaced by new ones. The surgeon continued to talk to her, but she suddenly found that she could not understand his words, which were practically gibberish. The words that did make it through barely stayed in her brain before they were lost to her forever.  Finally, they entered the room.

Andrew was in the bed, hooked up to machines, the heart monitor beating rhythmically. The surgeon was still talking, but Laura wasn’t even trying to listen now. Andrew’s skin was pale, his face sallow. Stark white bandages on his chest peeked out from under his hospital gown. This morning he had looked young and healthy, his usual self, but now he looked like had aged ten years in a matter of hours. 

“He should wake up in about thirty minutes. Make yourself comfortable in the meantime.”

Laura almost laughed. As the surgeon left, she sat down on the big chair next to the bed. Despite the size and extra padding, it was only marginally more comfortable than the waiting room chairs.

She reached over and took his hand, still warm. She squeezed it and felt a hint of what she had felt that first time in bed with him. She tried to hold it, force it into her heart, but it withered away, and she felt as empty as she had in the public restroom. The heart monitor continued to beep, beep, beep, and its sound filled up the room, unbearable. 

Who would take care of him while in recovery? Who would change his bandages and feed him when he was too weak to get out of bed? Who would run errands and bathe him and drive him to the inevitable doctor appointments? Who would drive him to work since he obviously couldn’t bike for a while?

Suddenly she felt a squeeze, and when she looked up Andrew’s eyes were half open. He looked around, groggy and confused, until his eyes focused on her.

“Hey,” he said, giving her a small smile. 

“Hey,” said Laura back.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered before drifting back into sleep. His hand still held hers, and she felt her traitorous heart flutter like it had on their first date.

He needed her now. She could make this work. She had to. She would stay with him and love him and support him. She would. She definitely would. She absolutely meant to.