The Other Woman.

A dream.

She was shaking uncontrollably, shifting for the hundredth time from the stiff hospital waiting room chair to her feet. Each time the emergency doors opened her breath caught. That rigid fear choked her and for countless seconds her tear stained features searched earnestly for a doctor to come an explain what was going on. 

How could this of happened? He was always so strong, so full of himself to ever falter. Knee's weakening she bent for a chair, but before settling down, a soft voice startled her.

A nurse was gesturing to her, and the doctor looked up from his clipboard. A gloved hand grabbed the mask covering his mouth and dragged it down. From the grim set of his lip, and the grizzled expression that seemed so haunted, she knew.

"No." She whispered, emotion getting stuck in her throat. 

The nurse reached out to guide her into a seat but she shrugged the somber woman off. With one hand covering her quivering mouth, the other held out a flat palm to keep the nurse at bay.

"How? I don't..understand." She moaned out, a swift pain hitting her chest. 

What was this feeling? It was like that day all over again. He was leaving again, and her world was crashing down. She couldn't do this all over again. To watch him walk away from her life was like a dagger into her heart. The healing had taken years and now out of no where he  was calling her again, calling her to be dragged into hell with him.

She looked at the doctor, meeting his shaded gaze with her own. In that moment she could almost hear him swallow, as if his mouth had gone dry. How many people did he have to see this way?

"Please, I need to see him."

"I am sorry ma'am, " The nurse started, shaking her head. "We can only allow his wife and immediate family in."

Something inside of her snapped, a guttural groan ripping from her mouth. Sniffing back all further painful sounds, she placed a hand on the doctor's arm to hold him back when he turned to leave.

"I need to see him. Wife? No, I may not be that. But please, please understand I was much more than that." Tears now flowed freely down her cheeks, and her lips kept stretching for the screams that ached to burst out.

The doctor made a move to unlace her tight grip but his eyes caught a glint of his wedding ring. As if some unspoken awareness passed between the two, he simply put an arm around her trembling shoulders and led her through the emergency doors.

The never ending hallway seemed like a aisle of death. The doctor was rushing her past bleeding patients, groaning pregnant women needing to be taken to other wards, and stumbling nurses. It was all a blur, she barely had time to turn her head before he was leaving her at a room. Other nurses calling out for his assistance. He hesitated a moment before going, nodding towards the closed door.

Her fingers shook violently on the door handle, but getting past it, it opened with a swift push. It didn't feel like...there was death. The room was neat and orderly. The sounds of beeping machines had faded and an eerie silence occupied the space. On the bed was a body covered with a thin white blanket, and her heart grew cold.

It felt like hours, but only seconds past, until she was at the bedside sliding the thin cloth away from his face. Gasping on a sob, she fell over him. Her hands went to both sides of his stiff cheeks, cradling his face. 

"Why!?" She cried out. "Why you f*****g b*****d! Why..why.."

Her blurry vision searched his features for those laughing eyes, but they had been closed. His mouth was set in an angry form of pain, and the life drained out.

"Don't you understand? You can't leave me anymore. After twelve years you came back. Why...why couldn't you of left me alone?" Through all her yelling, and the gulping tears getting lost over her lips, she did not hear the door creak open.

A nurse was leading another woman in, one that looked about six months pregnant. Her expression was pained, but her eyes dry. The nurse was about to speak and remove the other woman but a swift shake of the wife delayed her. The nurse nodded and backed out, leaving them alone in the room.

"You stole away my heart at fifteen. You took everything from me, all my shame, and my need. You walked away. Did you not think I was vulnerable when you came back, you a*****e? I was married, twenty-one, and so confused. But you...you touched me." Pressing her head now against that strong chest, her ears yearned from the beating of his heart. " You made me yearn for you. Then left. Did you know what I had to feel then? You gave me your child. And my own husband doesn't know."

The pregnant woman stiffened, moving to rest her aching back against the door. Her eyes were no longer on the other woman, but the body of her husband. So stiff and silent during this moment.

"Ah..he is so much like you. Didn't you used to joke that I would have a boy? I hate you even now for saying it. I hate the way he looks so much like you, and it only makes me love him more and more every day. Why..why did you come back? Couldn't you of left me alone. I obviously meant nothing to you. Why.." She whispered, her heaving sobs seeming to weaken with her waning strength.

 

"Because he was dying."

The hard voice made her gasp, but she did not jump away from the body. No, she stayed with her hands stroking his rough features, head lifting to look directly at the pretty pregnant woman.

They looked to be about the same age, both with dark hair and bright eyes. The two women stared at each other for a long moment, as if accessing the past nineteen years.

"What?" She asked then, a hand moving to swipe away hot fresh tears from her trembling lips.

The pregnant woman moved then, to the other side of the bed, her blue eyes gazing down at the strong willed man there.

"He was so arrogant. He knew he was dying long ago, even when he was a young boy. He told me but I didn't care, I wanted somebody to love. You must be thinking why he didn't tell you.." There was no smug sound in her voice, not even when in the face of the woman that had claimed her husbands body and heart even whilst she had. " It was probably because you were the one person he didn't want to see fall with him."

Standing now, she took her hands from his cold face and looked at his wife, fully now. 

"Did you know about me?"

"Know about you? Of course I did, but not in the way you think. I knew nothing about the child, and I am guessing he didn't either. There was always an open space in his heart, high above even his own children. Know about you? I knew of you before I knew you really existed."

Moving towards the door, his wife turned and looked over the woman her husband had chosen in his memories, time and time again. Always this moment had crossed her mind, but never like this. She wanted to hate the girl. But it was the way she had touched him, and yelled at him. Their passion was something no one could have had a say in.

"As far as his heart was concerned, I was the other woman."

Reviews

[FartsMcGee!]

This is a fun exploration of pretty much all of the major emotions available to humans in a brief interesting narrative. The juxtaposition of the pregnant woman throughout the revelation of his child was great.

[sarah]

this is interesting