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FOUR

H ave you ever tried to sit in a hospital, just waiting? And not knowing what you’re waiting for, while the person you love just… sleeps? It’s a unique torture, one that twists your heart like a sponge and rips unfixable fissures through your brain. It makes you want to pace the hallway in fury, stare at the heart monitor for clues. Scowl at strangers, spit at your reflection in the bathroom mirror, bite the inside of your cheek until it bleeds.

“We’ll keep her under sedation for at least twelve hours” is all the doctors will say. “We’ll update you when we know more. But for now, all we can do is wait and observe.”

And Eddie can’t stand it. What is happening inside Cookie’s body? What are all those tubes and monitors doing? What is she thinking? Is she thinking? When will she wake up? Will she wake up? Why can’t anyone tell him what will happen?

“Observe what?” Albert is saying, his nose pressed against the glass like a child at the aquarium. “Observe her sleeping? Is this a sleep clinic now?”

Eddie can see that Cookie’s bright orange hair, which he’s so rarely seen without her beret, has dulled over the past few days, and for the first time, Eddie notices her gray roots standing starkly out from her scalp. He hopes she didn’t catch sight of that in a mirror. She’d hate it.

“Those damn roots. She’s been bugging me to touch them up for two weeks, and I kept putting her off. And now—” Albert stops abruptly, as if he’s lost his breath. “I’ll touch them up when she’s back home.”

“When will that be?” Eddie says.

“How the hell should I know?” Albert snarls. He’s ricocheted back to rude, and it’s strangely comforting to Eddie. Like a rebalancing, like order. “All I know is she can’t wake up here. I just don’t want her to wake up here. There is nothing about this hospital that feels like New York City. Beige walls, ugly floors, ugly scrubs, mortifying lighting. We could be anywhere. We could be in Minneapolis, or Missoula, or even your silly little town. What’s it called?”

“Mesa Springs,” Eddie says.

“Mesa Springs,” Albert says, mocking. “She deserves better than Mesa Springs. When she opens her eyes she has to know that she is exactly where she belongs, in New York Fucking City. I need coffee.” He sweeps off toward the Exit sign in a gust of sour sandalwood.

… exactly where she belongs, in New York Fucking City, in New York Fucking City…

The words echo through Eddie’s head, and suddenly, he knows exactly what to do. “I’ll see you later,” he says to the glass separating him from Cookie.