The next day I woke up feeling groggy, struggling to make my brain work, struggling to remember where I was and why I was in bed with sunlight streaming in through the window. Why wasn’t I up and … doing what? Where was I anyway? Slowly, memories formed in my scrambled mind—hospital. Why was I here anyway? I was running away.... Robert—Robert! I lifted my head off the pillow with a cry.
I glanced around the room trying to orient myself. Oh my God! There he was! Behind the curtain! I could see his legs sprawling out from a chair in the corner near the foot of my bed. He must have heard me. He was getting up. I opened my mouth to call for the nurse again when I heard him say, “Sh-sh-sh, Andrea. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
“Huh?” I knew that voice, that face. “Jim?” Was I awake yet? Maybe I was dreaming. I scrunched my eyes shut and opened them again. “Is it really you, Jim?”
He rubbed my arm gently. “It’s me. Thank God you’re all right.”
I raised my head to try to look past him. “Where’s Robert?”
“Robert?” He took a step back. “You want Robert?”
“No, no, no.” I reached out for Jim. “No way. But he was here … maybe yesterday … he was here. Right here in this room.” Panic spread through me and my nerves jangled. My fingernails dug into Jim’s arm. “He was here!” My eyes filled with tears and waves of fear coursed through me from my head to my stomach like a bad adrenaline rush.
Jim put his arms around me. I held him tightly, never wanting to let him go. “It’s okay. He’s not here.” He kissed my forehead. “I’ll ask the nurse if you’re ready to come home.”
“Home?”
“With me? Remember? We were going to be together?”
Relief and joy must have shown all over my face. My smile was wide. “Yes.” I started climbing out of bed.
“Wait here,” Jim said. “I’ll ask the nurse if you can leave and she can help you get dressed.”
I stuck one leg out of the bed. “Never mind that. I have to get out of here.” I looked around. “My clothes … I … er….”
Jim pushed me gently back into the bed. “I bought you a couple of things to wear.” He pointed to a bag on the chair. “Some sweats and a T-shirt, hoodie, sandals. Just until we get you home and you can go shopping.”
You bought me clothes? “How did you know…? When?”
“I came to see you yesterday but they said you’d been sedated.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. Just after the police constable was here, they gave me a shot of something.”
“Anyway, so I told them I’d be back. The nurse mentioned you didn’t have any wearable clothes. I’ll go get her now.”
I reached for Jim’s hand and swallowed a lump in my throat. “Don’t forget to come back.” I heard the fear in my voice and hoped it didn’t turn him off. Maybe he’d run if he thought he was taking on a basket case. “I can’t wait to get out of here,” I added.
The nurse who came to help me dress was not Margaret, but she was young and friendly. “My gosh,” she said. “Your brother is sure a good-looking fellow.”
“My brother?”
“The fellow who just left.” She waved towards the door. “And your husband is very handsome too.”
I froze with my arms partway through the T-shirt sleeves.
She helped pull the shirt over my head. “Did I say something wrong?”
My mouth was dry and I could hardly swallow. “Is my husband around?”
“Not right now, but the other nurses were talking.” She giggled a bit, looking embarrassed. The jerk probably flirted with them. “Do you want me to call him?”
“NO! No, please don’t. I-I ran away from him and I won’t go back. If he comes … well, I’m just not going with him.” I watched the nurse’s eyes widen and her mouth form an “O.”
“Oh. Well, now that’s good to know. Just so we don’t send you off with the wrong person. So will you be going with your brother then?”
“Er, yes, with that man that was just here. Yes. Definitely not with my husband.” I began to tremble and my stomach clenched as I remembered what he was capable of. What if he tried to stop us?
The nurse pulled the sweat pants over my legs and as I stood and pulled them up, my ankle felt like a pincushion. The nurse caught me but I pushed her away and hopped to the bathroom dragging my bad foot. I made it just in time before my stomach gave over into the toilet. My hands shook as I tried to turn on the tap to rinse my mouth. The nurse had followed me in and helped me clean up.
“Your husband must have done some terrible things to frighten you like that.”
“You have no idea!”
As we came out of the bathroom, Jim was back. “All set?” he asked, nodding thanks to the nurse.
“I’ll get you a wheelchair. I know you’d be okay with the crutches, but ... hospital regulations.”
As soon as the nurse left, I grabbed a crutch. “Let’s get out of here, fast. Never mind the wheelchair.”
Jim held me up on my good side while I used the crutch on the other. “It’s so good to see you, Andrea.” He pulled me close as he guided me down the hall. “It’ll be just you and me now. No one’s going to hurt you again.”
Robert strode around the corner, yelling, “Get your paws off my wife!”
I let out a shriek and turned to try to run. Jim caught me as my crutch clattered to the floor.
“Go away!” I screeched at Robert. Jim had his arms around me, holding me up. He didn’t have a chance and took the punch right in his face. The lenses of his smashed glasses skittered on the floor. The glass crunched as Robert’s foot stomped on them. Jim fell backwards. I lost my balance and fell almost on top of him, but I wasn’t down for long. Robert caught hold of my flailing arm and yanked me up. My sprained ankle sent arrows of pain shooting up my leg.
“Let go of me!” I punched at him but he didn’t seem to feel a thing. His huge body was hard as rock. He was dragging me along the hall.
A nurse yelled out, “Call Security.”
“Done! They’re on their way.”
Jim jumped up and landed a punch on Robert’s ear.
“You fuckin’ son-of-a-bitch,” Robert yelled. He shoved me away and I scrabbled along the floor trying to protect my ankle as I fell again. Robert wound up his arm to throw another punch, but Jim was quicker and landed a jab on Robert’s nose.
As Robert staggered backwards momentarily, Jim said, “If you don’t leave right now, I’ll call the cops and tell them how you tried to kill Andrea.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The cabin. You burned it down with her locked inside.”
“Vandalism! I told you.” Robert wiped blood off his nose with his sleeve. His eyes had that glazed over wide-open look they always had when he beat me.
“Back off or you’re heading for jail.”
Robert came at Jim with his shoulders up, but stopped short—a bear doing a bluff charge—and stayed out of reach of Jim’s fists. As the Security guards approached, Robert snarled at me. “You’re mine.” He hurried down the hall, away from the guards. Then turning back to Jim he growled, “You’re going to regret this.”
*****
The nurse helped settle me in the wheelchair in the hall. “Good Lord, what a ruckus!” she said. “Is your ankle okay?”
I nodded and she motioned for Jim to take a seat in a nearby corner. She cleaned up his face, put something on the cut, and smoothed a Band-Aid under his eye. “You were lucky that glass only scraped your cheek. It could have been much worse. You should have waited for the wheelchair for Andrea.”
“I know, I know.” Jim squirmed as he looked at the floor and then sideways at me. “Won’t happen again.” He got up and we both thanked the nurse.
“Get some crutches at the medical supply store downstairs. The ones you have are only for use in the hospital. They’ll give you directions at the nurses’ station.” She let out a sigh. “And try to keep out of trouble.”
*****
“Let’s get out of here,” I muttered to Jim. I stood up and fitted the new crutches under my arms. “Where to?”
Jim pointed to the right side of the parking lot. “This way. Same truck you drove a year ago in the spring.”
“Right. When you burnt your face with the molten zinc.” I stopped short. “Oh wait! You couldn’t drive the boat or the truck then because of your eye. How are you going to drive the truck now without your glasses?”
“Don’t worry. I always carry a spare pair of glasses in the truck.”
I sighed, remembering better days. “Back then, I had such a wonderful time,” I said. “I’d never driven a truck before, but I got us where we wanted to go. I wish things had turned out differently for us after that weekend.”
“You’d be married to me now instead of to that maniac.” Jim put an arm around my shoulders. “We can still fix that though—if you want to, that is.”
I blinked back tears. My heart was trying to leap out of my ribcage. I swallowed hard, and looked into Jim’s face. I saw only kindness and love there. I hoped I wasn’t just seeing what I desperately wanted to see. “Are you sure you still want me after all this?”
Jim pulled me close and kissed me on the forehead. “More than anything, and forever,” he said. I wondered if he had any idea what he was letting himself in for? He didn’t know what Robert was capable of.