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“I tried to tell you the night we celebrated our marriage with my club and their Old Ladies.”
“You tried, huh?”
“Not hard enough, obviously.” He sighed. “I wasn’t sure how you’d take the news.”
“Take the news that you’d loved someone before me? And lost someone before me?”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
I wiggled out of his embrace and lifted myself up so I could stare at him. “I’m sorry you had to live through something like that.”
He nodded; his eyes hooded in the low light of the hospital room. The overhead light was shut off and there was just the dim glow from the lamp on the bedside table.
“I wondered, you know,” I said, cuddling up with him again.
“Wondered if I’d ever been married before?”
“No. Not that. But I did wonder if you’d been serious with someone in your past. The way you treated me—from the beginning—you were very natural about it. The way you took care of me. The way you checked in with me when we weren’t together. Part of me worried it was love-bombing. The other part of me thought that maybe you’d done all this before so you knew how to be.”
“It was a good instinct.”
I closed my eyes. “My mother isn’t here. Did you call her?”
“I called the house,” he said. “And I spoke to Stanton. Your mother…she…”
“Was already asleep, wasn’t she?” I said quietly.
“Yes.” He paused. “Did you know she’s been taking sleeping pills?”
“What? I had no idea.”
“Stanton shared that with me—as an explanation for why she was unavailable. He didn’t want you to think she was purposefully staying away.”
“I’m kind of relieved she’s not here, actually. I just clobbered her with the truth about Arnold. Like she needs more to worry about.”
“She doesn’t know about your health issue?”
“No.”
“Hayden…”
“Don’t Hayden me. I’ll tell her. I promise.”
He was quiet for a moment and then he said, “I called Charlie and left a message.”
“Oh.”
“I thought she should know.”
“She already knows. About my issue, I mean.”
“Of course she does.”
“She wanted me to tell you. She urged me to.”
The door to the hospital room opened and the night nurse strode inside. She placed a hand on her hip and stared at Bones. “Visiting hours are long over, honey. It’s time for you to leave.”
“I’m not leaving,” Bones said. “So, either you find the doctor to discharge her so I can take her home, or I’m sleeping right here in this bed.”
