Page 104 of Don't Go
"Suzanne, you didn’t have to."
"Drink it, Sabrina."
I drank it, and she sat with me by the window for an hour.
Bonnie was already moved to Memorial where Dr. Garrison was supposed to operate. Vivienne came the day before surgery.
She came with a coffee from the place on the corner, with cream and a sugar packet on the side, because Vivienne hadn't, since I'd met her, given up the discipline of asking what people took in their coffee.
"Sabrina, I brought you coffee."
"You didn't have to, but thank you."
"Try the coffee later. It’s good."
She talked about the coffee shop on the corner and the new owner's mother, a retired ballet dancer. She spoke like someone who had spent long hours at a sickbed and learned which words help and which only weigh things down. Vivienne knew. She had been at her husband's bedside until the last moments of his life.
That night, I went home.
Mrs. Park stayed at the hospital with a pillow under her arm and a bag with three changes of clothes and a look that had told me, without her saying it, that I had to go home tonight, whether I'd decided to go or not.
I took Beau with me. I'd simply, on the way out of the lobby, taken his hand, and he let himself be taken.
He drove us to my apartment.
I leaned my head against the window, and he kept his hand on the gearshift.
The apartment hadn't been lived in for some days. The cephalopod book was on the couch. Pickles was on the back of the couch. He came down to me. He wound around my ankles in a slow motion, looking a little sad.
Beau leaned down and held his hand out to Pickles.
Pickles walked around Beau's ankles too.
We went to the bedroom and didn't turn on the light. We took our clothes off in the dark and got into bed. He pulled the covers up and embraced me.
I put my face on his neck and didn't move for a long time.
"Beau."
"Mmm…"
"After this, after she’s okay, we need to talk."
"Yeah."
"About what we are."
He was very still. He had been still for a moment longer than the question had earned.
"Okay, don’t worry. We will talk."
I kissed his neck because I didn't have the words for the thing I wanted to say, and the kiss was something I could give in the dark with a man I'd been telling myself I wasn't allowed to feel about.
I slept peacefully that night.
Surgery morning came.
Bonnie was up early. The nurses had been in to do the pre-op vitals. She was in a hospital gown that was too big on her, and her hair was in a ponytail Mrs. Park had put in, because Bonnie had said the ponytail was important enough that I hadn't been the one allowed to do it.
