"How did the appointment go?"
Michael was still standing near the kitchen counter when he asked me.
I held the strap of my bag with both hands.
"The doctor wants to talk about my medical history."
He nodded toward the kettle.
"Is something wrong?"
"I don't know yet."
That was the truth.
I had questions I could barely form, and the man who might have answers was standing three feet away from me.
I wanted to ask him right then.
Instead, I watched him pour hot water into his cup.
The spoon tapped against the ceramic twice.
It was such an ordinary sound that I nearly lost my nerve.
"Michael, do you remember when I was in the hospital in 2008?"
His hand stopped moving.
Only for a moment.
Then he placed the spoon on the counter.
"Of course I remember."
"I had some questions about what happened while I was there."
He looked at me.
"What sort of questions?"
I told him about the ultrasound.
I explained that Dr. Evans had asked whether I had ever undergone surgery.
I told him I had said no.
Then I repeated the doctor's suggestion that I should ask him about the time I had been hospitalized.
Michael didn't interrupt.
His cup remained on the counter, untouched.
When I finished, he looked toward the window over the sink.
"Doctors ask all kinds of questions," he said.
"She seemed concerned."
"Then you should follow up with her."
I waited.
He picked up his cup and took a drink.
That was all he offered.
I had spent eighteen years avoiding difficult conversations with him, so I could hardly blame him for not welcoming one now.
But something about his answer troubled me.
He hadn't asked what the doctor had seen.
He hadn't asked whether I needed more tests.
He had simply directed me back to the doctor.
"Michael, did anything happen to me in the hospital that I don't know about?"
He put the cup down.
"You were very sick, Susan."
"I know."
"You took too many pills. They treated you."
"I remember that."
"Then what are you asking me?"
I looked at his face, trying to find the husband I had known before 2008.
"I don't know yet," I admitted. "That's why I'm asking."
He turned away from me.
"I have things to do."
He carried his cup into the living room.
I remained beside the counter.
The kettle had begun to cool, and a thin curl of steam drifted from its spout.
I wanted to follow him.
I wanted to insist that he look at me and answer the question properly.
Instead, I washed the cups.
I had spent years making it easy for Michael to avoid me.
I wasn't sure how to stop.
That night, I lay awake in the master bedroom and listened to the house settle around me.
The old heating system clicked on.
A car passed outside.
Somewhere down the hall, a door closed.
I thought about the hospital.
I had not revisited that memory in years because I believed I understood it.
I remembered the terrible depression that came after Michael discovered my affair.
I remembered barely eating.
I remembered lying in bed during the day because getting dressed felt like too much work.
I remembered the sleeping pills in the bathroom cabinet.
I had not planned to wake up in a hospital.
That was the truth I had always carried.
I had been desperate to escape my own mind, and I had done something dangerous.
When I woke, my throat hurt so badly that swallowing made my eyes water.
My abdomen felt bruised from the inside.
Michael was beside me.
I had been frightened that he would leave me alone.
Instead, he held my hand.
He told me the pain came from the treatment the hospital staff had given me.
I believed him because I wanted to believe him.
At the time, I had thought his presence meant our marriage might still be saved.
I didn't understand that he could sit beside my bed and still be preparing to leave our marriage behind.
Or perhaps he had already left it.
I turned onto my side and pulled the blanket up to my chin.
The next morning, Michael was in the kitchen before me.
He had already made coffee.
I watched him check the calendar on the refrigerator, where we still marked appointments and household reminders.
His handwriting had not changed much over the years.
The letters were narrow and neat.
He had written the date of a routine maintenance appointment beside the following Friday.
I looked at the calendar and wondered how many things he had written down without ever telling me what he was thinking.
"Michael?"
He looked over.
"I need to go back to the doctor."
"All right."
"She wants to review the results with me."
"Then go."
I swallowed.
"I think you should come with me."
For the first time that morning, he looked directly at me for more than a second.
"Why?"
"Because she thinks something happened when I was in the hospital."
His expression tightened.
I saw it.
He looked away before I could be sure what it meant.
"I don't know anything about your medical results, Susan."
"I'm not asking you to explain the scan."
"Then what are you asking?"
I could feel my heartbeat in my throat.
"I'm asking you to come with me and help me understand what happened."
He set his cup down beside the sink.
"No."
The answer was quiet.
It was also final.
I had been rejected by Michael in a thousand small ways, but this one felt different.
I wasn't asking him to share a bed or hold my hand.
I was asking him to stand beside me while a doctor explained something about my own body.
He still refused.
I nodded as though I had expected it.
"All right."
He picked up his keys.
Before leaving, he checked his pockets, as he always did.
Then he walked out.
I stood at the kitchen window and watched him cross the driveway.
He reached the garage, turned back to check the door, and continued toward his car.
The same ordinary movements.
The same man.
But I could no longer look at him without wondering what he remembered about 2008 that I did not.
That afternoon, I called Dr. Evans's office.
The receptionist found a follow-up appointment for me.
I accepted the first available time.
Afterward, I sat at the kitchen table and wrote down every question I could think of.
Had I undergone a procedure?
Was there evidence of an old injury?
Could the scan be misleading?
Was the pressure connected to what the technician had seen?
I wrote each question on a separate line.
At the bottom of the page, I added one more.
What happened to me when I was unconscious?
I stared at that sentence for a long time.
Then I folded the paper and put it in my bag.
I had spent eighteen years accepting an explanation because the man who gave it to me had once been the person I trusted most.
I was finally beginning to understand that trust could survive in memory long after it had disappeared from a marriage.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: The More I Tried to Remember the Hospital, the More I Realized How Much of That Night I Had Simply Accepted
The Question My Doctor Asked Made Me Realize My Eighteen-Year Marriage Had Been Built Around Something I Never Understood
Part 5 of 8
