reflexively, she glanced at his left hand. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
Observant of where she’d targeted her gaze, he said, “I’m not married. No woman would put up with my schedule.”
“Maybe you just haven’t met the right one.” A man like him, dedicated to his profession, determined to give his patients most of his energy, deserved to have somebody waiting for him at the end of a long day. But she didn’t say that. It seemed too…personal somehow.
“Feeling a little better?” he asked.
“Yes, and thank you for your concern. You’re busy and I know Brady’s your patient, not me. I’ll be fine. After the next visit I’ll try to get some sleep.”
“Away from the hospital?”
“Well, I was just going to stretch out in the waiting room again.”
“Go home, Mrs. Malone. Sleep in your own bed. Try to get a good night’s rest. You’ll do more for your husband that way than if he spots those dark circles under your eyes and realizes you’re dragging because you haven’t slept.”
“I just…I just don’t want to leave him. It’s crazy, but I feel that as long as I’m here watching over him, as long as I’m talking to him and touching him, he’ll get stronger faster.”
Dr. Gregano gave her a wry smile. “Mr. Malone is a lucky man. I imagine that whether you’re here or whether you’re at home, he’ll feel you pulling for him.”
The cardiologist’s pager went off. Excusing himself, he checked the number. “I have to get this,” he said with a grim expression. “Remember what I said and take my advice. Go home.” Then he was rushing toward the elevator.
Laura looked back at the cubicle she’d exited. Dr. Gregano had said Brady would be better in another hour. She couldn’t leave yet…she just couldn’t. She’d call Pat to pick up the kids, but she was going to stay. No matter what Dr. Gregano said, she wanted Brady to feel her presence. She wanted him to feel her touch.
After thirty-three years of marriage, she didn’t know what else to do.
Chapter 5
“Kat looked so grown-up today.” Brady laid down his fork and rested his head against the back of the chair Sunday afternoon, four days after surgery, feeling more tired than he could ever remember feeling. The surgery should have fixed him. Had it?
Making conversation took effort. But he didn’t want Laura worrying any more than she already was. He could see the guilt in her eyes that she’d caused his heart attack. He could see the questions. But he wasn’t ready to face problems that had been around much too long. He needed a hell of a lot more energy than this to do that.
So he concentrated on pushing his lunch around his plate and forced himself to talk just to get this visit finished. “But I got the feeling she couldn’t wait to leave.” He could still hear the rasp in his voice from being on the ventilator.
After a moment’s hesitation, during which he could tell Laura was debating with herself, she said, “She likes to spend time with you. She just doesn’t want to spend it with you in a hospital.”
“You don’t like hospitals, either.”
She shrugged. “I’m grateful to this hospital and the doctors who saved your life.”
Brady closed his eyes for a few moments. “I’m just so damn tired.”
“I hear that’s normal. You might feel that way for a while.”
When Brady opened his eyes, he studied her, a list of everything she’d had to handle since he’d been rushed in here clicking in his mind. “Sean’s been okay through all this? No signs of him drinking?”
Last summer Sean had gotten home in the middle of the night two nights in a row. They’d let the first time pass, but Brady had confronted him the second night. He’d been so drunk he couldn’t stand without leaning against the wall. Brady had grounded him for six weeks and taken away his driving privileges except for going to and from work. Their son had been resentful and angry the rest of the summer. After the fact, from talking to another parent, Brady had learned the boys partied much too often, and he’d known he’d had to be strict with Sean. It had seemed to work. When the school year started and his son had kept up his grades—knowing he had to in order to get into college—he and Brady had formed an uneasy truce. But it was a truce that could easily be broken.
“Actually, he’s been very supportive,” Laura replied. “The thing is, he overheard some of our argument. He thought we were arguing about him and that caused your heart attack.”
“The blockage in my heart was a time bomb. That caused my heart attack. Be sure to tell him that.”
“I did.”
He knew what she was thinking. He should talk to their son. She’d always expected so much of him where Sean was concerned and he hadn’t been able to deliver.
To avoid an argument he commented, “One of the nurses mentioned you had to elude a reporter when you left yesterday. Are they bothering you?”
Laura hesitated.
He hated that she was being so careful around him. He hated that she thought since his heart attack he had to be coddled or protected. She obviously didn’t know what to say and what not to say because of that videotape they’d had to watch and the suggestions in the informational binder he’d glanced at but she’d probably read cover to cover. Both had warned that a recuperating heart surgery patient should keep anxiety and stress to a minimum.
“Laura, what’s going on?”
“There was a short segment on the local news about the article,” she replied quickly.
There was more. “What else?” he prodded. “Don’t hide things from me.”
After glancing out the window for a moment, she admitted, “We’ve had news vans in front of the house and reporters waiting for us downstairs. But the ruckus is dying down now. Pat told the reporters to get lost while I was here with you. Since then, they’ve kept their distance.”
Hospital sounds—a metal cart clicking on tile, lowered voices, a laugh track on someone’s TV—filled the silence between them.
It was time to change the subject. Brady commented, “I can’t believe Dr. Gregano is going to discharge me tomorrow.”
Laura gave Brady a bright smile. “You walked up and down the hall three times today and you’re going to do it again tonight. That’s progress.”
“At home—”
“At home, we’ll take things one day at a time. I was thinking…” she began lightly. “Sean could help me bring down one of the single beds in the spare room and set it up in your den. That way you could sleep there and…rest during the day if you need to.”
The thought of being an invalid was unfathomable. “I’m going to hate this. Maybe I can just use the recliner.”
“They stopped your heart,”
