These Three Words Read Online Free PDF Page B

them with news like this.
    She nodded. “I’ll send a nurse in with the consent forms.”
    “Consent forms?” I asked.
    “As his wife, you’ll need to sign the consent forms that will allow us to do the surgery.”
    “Surgery?”
    “To put in the stents,” she said gently.
    “For his heart,” I managed.
    “Yes,” she said, then turned and hurried back toward the ER, as if she didn’t want to get stuck answering any more of my questions.
    I didn’t blame her.
    Normally I was pretty quick about things, but I felt like I was thinking through cotton.
    I felt dazed as I walked back across the room and sat down across from Maude.
    “It doesn’t sound good,” I said. I needed to say the words to someone. I needed to hear what they sounded like.
    It doesn’t sound good.
    The words were daggers. They were more painful than anything I’d heard or felt this last year.
    Maude didn’t say anything. She didn’t try to paint a good face on it. She simply reached across the expanse that separated us and patted my hand.
    The nurse came with the papers, which I duly signed. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you up to the surgical waiting room.”
    I nodded and stood again. “I’ve got to go,” I told Bertie’s wife. “I hope Bertie’s okay.”
    “I’ll say a prayer for your husband,” she said in response.
    “Thank you, Maude.” I nodded.
    The young nurse urged me to come along by only saying my name. “Mrs. Grayson?”
    Mrs. Grayson .
    When I had my lawyer draw up my divorce papers, I’d thought about going back to my maiden name. Adeline Frasier.
    He’d said it wouldn’t be hard to have everything changed over. He’d help me.
    But in the end, I couldn’t do it. I’d been Addie Grayson since I was twenty-four. Rationally, I knew that was only six years out of my thirty, but those years had set their stamp on me. I’d been Adeline Frasier, but I was Addie Grayson.
    It was a difference that might not mean anything to someone else, but it meant everything to me.
    I might be ready to end my marriage, but I wasn’t ready to put an end to who I was.

Chapter Three
    “Mrs. Grayson?” the nurse said again.
    I realized I was just standing in front of Maude. I nodded at her and then turned to the nurse and said, “Yes. I’m ready.”
    I left the ER waiting room behind as I followed the young nurse through sterile-looking halls that smelled of antiseptic. While I was sure they used it to clean germs, I suddenly thought that its acrid smell was also used to cover the smell that they couldn’t quite mask in the emergency room. Maybe they thought that patients and their families wouldn’t be able to smell the fear and despair that lurked underneath the antiseptic smell.
    But I could.
    The nurse wove through the halls.
    I knew if left to my own devices I’d never find my way back through the labyrinth. Gray had always helped me with direction. To be honest, I was hopeless. I’d lived in Erie all my life and still navigated by landmarks rather than roads.
    Gray had learned to give me directions that way. Go to the church with the stained glass front window you love and . . .
    I blinked my eyes rapidly, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to escape.
    How had I imagined I’d navigate my life without him?
    The papers in my hand seemed to weigh more with each passing step. This morning I’d planned to walk away from Gray permanently, and now I wanted nothing more than to see him again.
    I knew that the chasm that had widened over the last year wouldn’t disappear, but I also realized that it didn’t matter now. Only he mattered.
    What if he didn’t survive?
    They’d talked about his high risk of death.
    “What will I do if he dies?” I asked myself more than the nurse who was escorting me.
    “We’re going to do our best to see to it that doesn’t happen.” She’d probably said those words countless times. They came as naturally to her as saying thank you or please did to me.
    We both