Chapter 1
On the day of my surgery, my husband, Clinton Barlow, got a call from his first love.
I grabbed the cuff of his shirt. "Can you wait for me to come out?"
He leaned down and kissed me. "Be good, don't be scared. Once you wake up, you'll see me, and then you can do whatever you want with me, okay?"
After the surgery, I was shaking all over from the pain.
The nurse called him 17 times, but no one answered.
It was 3 a.m. when he finally showed up.
He was holding a container of my favorite ravioli and sat down on the edge of my bed to coax me.
"Babe, are you still mad? Punish me by letting me be at your beck and call for the rest of my life to make it up to you, okay?"
I asked, "How's Aileen Beltran?"
His smile dimmed a little.
"She's been a mess since her divorce, and you know it."
"So that gives you the right to leave me alone?"
He sighed and pinched my cheek lightly.
"You're my wife. No one's ever going to come before you, all right?"
The next day, Aileen came to visit me at the hospital.
She held out a man's scarf to Clinton.
"You left this on my bed last night. Try not to be so careless next time, yeah?"
Clinton laughed and tapped her forehead. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
I asked, "Why was your scarf on her bed?"
The smile faded from his face.
"She had a nightmare, so I sat with her all night. Cassandra Buckley, are you really forcing me to say something cruel? She's the one who really can't get by without me. You're not."
I didn't say another word. If he thought I didn't need him, I would give him what he wanted.
*****
"Clinton, get that scarf out of here."
I pointed to the foot of the bed.
Aileen's eyes turned red immediately, her fingers tightening around the scarf.
"Cassandra, did I come at a bad time?"
I stared right at her. "You already returned what you came to return. It's time for you to go."
Clinton was the first to smile.
"Sure, Mrs. Barlow calls the shots today." He took the scarf, stuffed it into Aileen's bag, and added, "Head on home, and be careful on the road."
Aileen glanced at him, then hung her head and left.
The door closed behind her. Clinton turned around and pulled the blanket that had slipped to my waist back up. "Satisfied now, Ms. Buckley?"
He liked calling me that.
Back in the first few years of our marriage, I worked as an elementary school teacher.
He was swamped with getting his business off the ground and kept forgetting to eat, so I fussed over him just like I fussed over my students.
He complained that I nagged too much, but he always took a detour to pick me up after work.
One time, I worked overtime late into the night. I found him squatting by the school gate, eating instant noodles.
The moment he saw me walk out, he raised his plastic fork and grinned. "Ms. Buckley, can I get a gold star today?"
That was how I fell for him, bit by bit.
Now he was looking at me with that same smile.
But I couldn't smile back.
"Why didn't you answer the phone last night?"
His hands froze for a moment.
"Aileen was emotionally unstable. I was afraid something might happen to her, so I put my phone on silent."
"The nurses told me I kept asking for you after I woke up from the anesthesia."
He lowered his head.
"I know."
"No, you don't." I looked at him. "When I woke up, there wasn't a single person I knew beside me."
He was silent for a moment, then took my hand.
"I'm sorry, honey. I wasn't thinking."
I pulled my hand back. "Don't let this happen again."
He smiled immediately.
"There won't be a next time."
Then he reached out to touch my face.
"Don't frown. The doctor said you can't get upset right now."
I turned away. "The doctor also said I need someone with me."
The smile on Clinton's face froze for a moment.
That afternoon, the doctor made rounds. I had undergone surgery to remove uterine fibroids. The surgery had gone smoothly, but I needed to rest for a while and couldn't lift anything heavy.
Clinton held his phone and wrote down every care instruction one by one.
As soon as the doctor left, he replaced the cup of water by my bed with one that had a straw. "You won't have to sit up to drink anymore."
He even remembered that I couldn't stand bitter medicine and bought candied fruit just for me.
As I watched him unwrap it, the resentment in my chest eased a little.
That night, when I wanted to use the bathroom, Clinton bent down to put my slippers on for me.
Suddenly, his phone buzzed. Aileen's name popped up on the screen.
I looked at him instinctively.
He hung up immediately.
"What are you looking at?"
He helped me up.
"No one is going to call me away from you today."
My nose stung.
We had just reached the bathroom door when the phone rang again.
Clinton glanced at it. This time he didn't hang up. He set it to silent and put it in his pants pocket.
"I'll help you inside."
I suddenly asked, "What if she really needs help?"
Clinton looked down at me. "Then it will have to wait until I've taken care of you first."
At that moment, I really believed him.
Then, in the middle of the night, I woke up in pain. No one was beside the bed.
I heard Clinton's low voice from the balcony.
"It's not that I don't want to go. Cassandra just had surgery. I can't leave at a time like this. Hang in there for two more days. Once she's discharged, I'll come stay with you."
I lay back on the bed, not knowing what I felt.
It turned out he had stayed today not because he knew who mattered more, but only because I was still in this hospital bed.
