Answering Machine

I wasn’t too sure of how long after everyone else had left that it was before it happened, but it had certainly been long enough for me to have dozed off, with my head leaning against my arms, which were propped on the side of the bed.

At first, I flinched, still too tired to open my eyes, but then I realized why I had begun to stir in the first place. I could still feel it – something crawling through my hair – and immediately, images of tarantulas and ticks floated to my mind. Disoriented, I raised a hand to my head, combing my fingers through my hair until I was met with, not the assumed hairy legs of a gargantuan spider, but instead, another hand.

My eyes blinked rapidly, attempting to adjust to the dimly lit room, and I lifted my head, wincing at the pain that the stiffness in my neck had caused. As soon as I looked up at Lindsay, however, the pain in my neck ceased to remain important as successive waves of relief washed over me.

It was her hand that was laced through my hair, and she was awake, though she looked exhausted and frightened. I immediately sat up, moving to the edge of her bed. Her hand fell from my hair to my hand and I held it gently, afraid to hurt her any more than she already was.

“I’m sorry,” were the first soft, hoarse words that fell from her cracked lips. I frowned and scooted even closer to her, gently running my thumb over her cheek.

“Sorry?” I repeated. “Linds, you were in a car accident. That’s hardly your fault.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes, and for a moment I thought she had fallen back asleep, but she opened them after a moment, and this time they were filled with shimmering tears.

“I’m sorry I got so upset with you,” she clarified, staring at me earnestly. “And I shouldn’t have made you feel guilty about being gone. You’re a fantastic father and Allie loves you, she really does – “

“Lindsay,” I cut her off, pushing strands of her hair away from her face as I smiled softly at her, “please. If one of us should apologize, it’s me. I mean, what if I hadn’t been home today? What if, God forbid, something worse happened to you, and I wasn’t here?”

“But you were here,” she insisted, “and that’s what matters. I don’t care about how it could have been, John. I’m just happy that you were here, and that you’re here now, okay?”

Even though I wanted to tell her that, no, it wasn’t okay that I just happened to be home this time – because what if there was a next time when I wasn’t around? – I simply nodded. After a few moments of silence, Lindsay shifted in the bed and immediately winced, a look of sheer pain and discomfort covering her face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked immediately, even though I knew that was a stupid question when someone was lying in a hospital bed for obvious reasons.

“It hurts,” she whimpered softly, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the pillows. “Everything hurts.”

I frowned once more, but leaned closer to her, touching my lips softly to the large, purple bruise on her forehead, then the one below her right eye, and down the one that stretched over the left side of her jaw. She smiled lightly, but kept her eyes closed.

“What?” I asked, noticing that her smile had slowly turned into a smirk.

“I was just thinking,” she murmured, “that it’s a shame my lips don’t hurt.”

I felt myself grin, ecstatic just to hear her crack a joke, and I moved my lips directly to hers. The heart monitor behind her picked up, mimicking the quickening beats and I smirked.

“I think you have a crush on me, or something,” I joked.

“Well that’s no good,” she replied, crinkling her nose and frowning playfully. “What will my husband think?”

“Probably that if he wasn’t gone all the time, maybe his wife wouldn’t have gone running into the arms of another man,” I responded, partially sarcastically, but mostly honestly.

She frowned at me, this time seriously, and ran her hand back through my hair.

“I’m never going to leave you, John,” she promised.

If I was being completely honest with myself, I had to admit that sometimes I feared that she would leave me, because, really, that’s all I was ever doing to her. I could lie awake at night for hours on end, practically convincing myself that I wasn’t anywhere near good enough for Lindsay. But in the end, she was still by my side. She always was.

All I could do was smile gently at her, still running my hand over her hair.

“Were my parents here?” Lindsay asked quietly, probably realizing that our previous conversation wasn’t getting any further. I nodded and looked up at her.

“Of course,” I told her. “Only one of us was allowed to stay the night, and your mom insisted that it be me. My parents were here, too. They took Allie to spend the night with them.”

A small smile hit the ends of Lindsay’s lips when I mentioned Allie and she closed her eyes, leaning her head back against her pillows once more.

“When can I go home?” she asked, sounding very nearly like a small child.

“The doctors weren’t exactly sure,” I told her with a small shrug, “but I can’t imagine you having to stay here for more than a couple more days. You’re real beat up, though, Linds.”

She sighed and nodded, then sat up slightly to shift herself to the left, wincing the whole time.

“Linds, what are you doing?” I asked, my eyes wide and confused.

“Making room,” she mumbled. When I raised a curious eyebrow at her, she smiled lazily and tugged at my hand to pull me closer. “I don’t really like falling asleep without you if I don’t have to.”

“I don’t think this is allowed,” I reasoned with a small chuckle as she pulled me closer to her, careful to avoid her bruises and broken bones.

“I thought the patient was always right?” she countered as I kicked my shoes to the floor and awkwardly wrapped my arm around her, wherever it didn’t hurt.

“Something like that,” I responded with a yawn. Next to me, Lindsay closed her eyes and I listened as her breathing steadied.

I didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that, somehow, our arguments seemed to dissolve into nothing, as if we could forget they ever existed. At the moment, I reasoned, it was terrific, so I could lie next to Lindsay as she slept, knowing that she would be all right.

“I’m not going anywhere, Lindsay,” I whispered against her ear. “I’m always here.”