I rolled over in bed, sighing as I felt his fingers move down the curve of my arm. Smiling, I rolled over and reached out to caress him back, but it was just me, alone, as usual.
Clutching my thickest pillow as if to simulate a hug, I reached over to the far nightstand where his photo lay face down. I couldn't bear to see his face. But the loneliness was too much for me. I pulled the chain on the lamp, and brought the frame closer.
There he was. I shed a tear as he smiled, waving down at me, from the top of a rock formation. My mind retraced the romantic events of our last camping trip to the high desert. I shuddered, trying in vain to suppress the tears that threatened the corners of my eyes.
Pulling his picture to my chest, as if to press it to my heart, the floodgates opened, and I cried myself to sleep.
*********
"Scott," I implored, "We're going to get through this together."
Taking a deep breath, my fiance looked me in the eye, "I know we will."
Playfully, my index finger traced the shape of his right hand over the blanket. His left hand reached up and cupped my own, his thumb tracing the bones on the back of mine, comforting my fears. I looked down at the I.V. and up at his sparkling eyes. His face had a rosy glow I hadn't seen in a long time, and I hoped with all my heart that he would get better soon.
*********
I walked into my supervisor's office. "The hospital called and told me he was being discharged. I want to down early, to pack up all his belongings." Sherry, my supervisor, nodded.
When I arrived, he was dressed in his pajamas, sitting up on the edge of the mattress, smiling at me. Next to him were two plastic bags already filled. From his boyish grin, I could tell he was eagerly awaiting the nurse's okay to leave.
I walked up and without sitting, I lightly straddled one of his legs. He looked up at me and the emotion that lay behind his one word, "Michelle.", said it all. I leaned down, and slowly kissed him. One of his hands caressed my short brown hair, before gliding down my neck and shoulder.
"I hope I'm not disturbing anything." The nurse's form filled the doorway. She held a clipboard and had a rolling blood pressure monitor at her side. She looked somewhat annoyed.
"Oh, sorry." I blushed and turned away.
She walked over to Scott and got to work. After recording his blood pressure, temperature, and pulse oxygenation, she ripped open a tiny package and pulled out an alcohol wipe. She untaped the I.V., sterilized the wound, and as she removed the needle and covered the spot with a silly cartoon bandage, it finally felt for real that he was coming home.