Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [15]
In the hospital room, David sat across from Alice’s bed and watched her for hours.
At times he dozed in his chair and occasionally slept fitfully and when he woke she was still unconscious. Once he got up to listen to her heart, and after that he went to the window; in the coned beams from streetlights below, he saw that it was still snowing; then he turned and watched Alice some more. With no change in her condition he sat in his chair and slipped off to sleep himself, a sleep of no dreams. There was snow on the ground when he woke up that morning, snow on the windowsill, snow across all the buildings and water towers of Manhattan. The wind was high and strong and gusts beat the pane, punting the glass. Gulls banked toward the Hudson. Pigeons searched for places to land. The sun rose into a clear blue sky, a white sun without warmth that reflected off the snow, and the whole world brightened with the glare. Then Alice awoke. She’d been propped upright in case she vomited again, and when she opened her eyes she opened them wide, looking calmly around at the light-flooded room, blinking once at her husband, recognizing him, then looked away.
“I’m going to change my life,” she said.
David didn’t know what she meant by this or how to react. But at the same time unutterably relieved to see her alive, he simply said, “Yes.” She’d been unconscious for hours but seemed to have spent this time reflecting, having made this decision somewhere in the back of her mind. She was so unwilling to talk to him that morning and for the rest of the day that by evening David gave up trying. She’d been so sick he couldn’t begrudge her anything, yet the longer this went on the more anxious he became. She was angry with him, angry, he knew, for the things he’d said, and every time he recalled their fight, he felt more and more ashamed.
“Alice,” he said the next morning, “I’m so sorry.”
She was watching the television above his head. She lay with her arms crossed, and every time she jabbed the remote at the screen he felt sure the set would fall down on him.
“Sorry for what?”
“For the things I said. For upsetting you so much.”
“Is that what you think?” Alice said.
It was what he thought, but the look of disgust and amazement on her face was so intense that he strongly considered lying.
“You think this happened to me because of our fight? Because of something you might have said?”
“Well,” David answered, “yes.”
She jabbed the remote one, two, three times. “Then you’d be wrong.”
He waited for an explanation, but none came.
“Then why does it seem like you’re angry with me?” he asked.
“Because I’m trapped here, David. And because I am trapped here, I can’t get on with changing my life. Does that make sense to you? Does it make things clear?”
“No,” he said, “it doesn’t.”
“Well,” Alice said, “that’s just the way it’s going to be for now.”
Her doctor came by on rounds later that evening. When he entered the room, Alice was cordial and talkative, and that she seemed capable of treating this stranger with more decency and kindness than her own husband left David feeling more hurt and confused than before. The doctor checked her heart rate and blood pressure, shined a light in her eyes and examined her tongue. He was Indian, and with his long, delicate fingers—his palms were as pink as smoked chicken—he thumped Alice’s back. And though it was completely irrational, the fact that he was touching her made David horribly jealous.
“Your blood tests came in,” the doctor said. “You’re anemic. You also have acute hyperthyroidism. Were you aware of this condition?”
Alice shook her head.
“When you diet in the future, you must monitor your nutrition more carefully.”
“I will,” she said. “Doctor, may we speak privately for a moment?”
“Certainly.”
Both the doctor and Alice looked over at David and waited. David pointed to himself, then got up and left the room, closed the door behind him, and stood tapping his foot in the hallway.
Within a few minutes, the door