—

ON THE SECOND day, I have another CT scan. There’s no reaccumulation of the clot, and no intracranial air. All in all, the doctor says, it looks like I will make a complete recovery. I stay under observation for another day.

Miraculously, my phone survived the crash, with only a cracked screen—which means I’ve been able to talk with Meret. Brian told her I needed to stay in the hospital for a few days, and I have a friend taking care of me. That, I realize, is so generous Meret doesn’t even question it. She is FaceTiming with me the first time I sit up on my own in bed, and when I take a walk around the floor, pointing out the patient lounge with the television stuck permanently on Boomerang en Espa?ol, and the nurse that looks like Alec Baldwin. She is with me when the doctor unwinds the bandage and I first scrutinize the neat little scar in the shape of a question mark, held fast by glue and staples. My hair has been shorn on one side only, which she says makes me look like Natalie Dormer in Mockingjay, and she googles it to show me. She wins her first singles match on the tennis team and phones me on the ride home because she is so excited.

Whenever Meret calls, Wyatt steps out of the room. I know it is to give me privacy, but also because he is terrified to have his first interaction with her be over a screen. Or maybe he is just terrified to have his first interaction with her, period.

I am always careful to smile and to be upbeat, even if my head hurts or I’m tired. Meret is always careful to talk about superficial things. When the conversation begins to get strained, we can both feel it, like when you move over a frozen pond and edge back from the spots where the ice is too thin.

Each time, before we hang up, Brian asks to speak to me.

He scrutinizes me, and tells me I’m looking better. I relay what the doctors have said. We run out of words, because I will not mention Wyatt to him, and he doesn’t seem willing to volunteer information about how he’s spending his days. It’s familiar but just a little off, like when you are watching a movie on TV and the sound doesn’t quite match the mouths of the actors. He isn’t angry and he isn’t sad; I can’t quite put my finger on what he is. Studiously even, maybe. Waiting.

On the third day that I’m in the hospital, Meret doesn’t mention Brian. “So,” I say. “I guess I should talk to…”

I don’t know what to say. Your dad?

“Oh,” Meret interrupts. “He’s not here.”

“Okay,” I say. It isn’t surprising that he’s at his lab, and yet, somehow, it is. Somehow, I expected him to be there, just because I was asking.

After we hang up, I stare at the phone in my lap, thinking of Brian’s brilliant mind. I wonder if he learned this lesson from me: that something has to leave before you realize it is missing.

* * *

—

FOUR DAYS AFTER I nearly died in a plane crash I board an aircraft again.

Because there was no air in my follow-up CT scan, the doctors give me a cautious thumbs-up to fly, since it’s a short flight and there are neurosurgeons in Boston who can take care of any complications. Wyatt buys a silk scarf from the gift shop for me to wrap around my head, although it doesn’t really conceal the fact that half my head is shaved and the other half is not. I think I will never be able to make myself step onto that jet bridge, yet I turn out to be less anxiety-ridden than I expect. I find myself looking at the other passengers as they stow their carry-ons and buckle their seatbelts. Do you know how lucky you are to be flying with me? I want to say. The worst has already happened; what are the odds it will ever happen again?

When we land, though, I grip Wyatt’s hand so hard that my nails leave marks in his skin.

How many times have I come through Logan Airport—back from a trip to Orlando with Meret, or a conference in London with Brian—yet this is the first time I’ve been here with Wyatt. It’s the first time I’ve been anywhere with Wyatt, really, other than Yale or Egypt. Having him in the spatial dimension of the city I call home is jarring.

It makes the most sense for Wyatt to check in to a hotel. We decide to rent a car, because when I had emailed Brian from Cairo, I had told him where mine was parked at the airport, so that he could reclaim it.

At the Avis counter, a clerk with a Boston accent as thick as soup asks Wyatt if he wants a full-size, a compact, or a subcompact.

“You Americans with your size obsession,” he says. “Compact is fine. I’m not compensating for anything.”

The clerk doesn’t even bat an eye. “If your wife is driving, I need her license, too.”

It’s an assumption, but it stops us cold. “I…I’m not driving,” I stammer. I can’t, not for a couple of weeks, but it’s also easier than saying I’m not his wife. It makes me think of Wyatt bellowing his way into my hospital room, because he wasn’t my next of kin. I’m nothing to him—not legally, not practically, not in the way the world recognizes. This hammers home for me, firmly, the gravity of where we are headed.

“Just me, mate,” Wyatt tells the clerk. He hands off his credit card—miraculously, his wallet also stayed in his pocket during the crash—and wraps his arm around me. “Isn’t Boston all about lobsters?”

“Um, yes?”

“I’d like to have one. They’re not exactly prevalent in Egyptian cuisine.”

I am flooded with gratitude for Wyatt, for making this feel normal, instead of unbearable. For pretending, even if it’s only for the next half hour, that I am not about to pull the thread that completely unravels the life I’ve been wrapped in.

“I can make that happen,” I say.

* * *

—

IT IS JUST after 7:00 P.M. when Wyatt drops me off at my house. We have decided that it’s best I do this first part alone. For a moment, we sit with our hands knotted on the gearshift. “Whatever happens, Olive,” he says, “I don’t blame you. I know full well that I’m not exactly a welcome visitor for anyone in that house.” His voice roughens. “And if she isn’t ready to see me right away, well, I’ve waited fifteen years. I can wait some more.”

I nod and open the passenger door, but he doesn’t let go of my hand. “I can’t help thinking that once you walk through that door, you won’t come back out,” Wyatt says softly. He leans forward and stamps a kiss on my lips like a brand. I get out of the car before I can change my mind and walk up the steps. I hesitate at the door, not sure if I should knock, or just walk in. Wyatt is still waiting at the curb, as if he knows I might turn and take refuge again in his car.

Taking a deep breath, I enter my house.

I hear water running in the sink and follow it to the kitchen. Brian stands with his back to me, rinsing dishes and putting them into the dishwasher. I have a sudden, searing flash of memory: the summer that the dishwasher broke and we didn’t have enough money to pay for a new one, so we’d flip a coin each night to see who got kitchen duty. How, when I lost, he would still come into the kitchen and dry the dishes for me, so I didn’t have to do it all alone.

“I’m back,” I say.

Brian knew I was being discharged, but I hadn’t told him when, exactly, I was arriving back in Boston. He might have assumed I’d want to travel by car, which would take another day. I watch his shoulders square, and then he turns off the faucet and pivots, wiping his hands on a dish towel and seeing me upright and healthy, except for the scar in the shape of a question mark. For one glorious, unexpected moment, joy washes over his face, like gilding on a statue. In one step, he is across the room and I am in his arms and he’s crushing me against him. He leans back, running his hands down my arms as if he needs to convince himself that I am real. But then, the space between us solidifies, pushing back at each of our edges, until we are standing a foot apart and no longer touching.

“The doctors say it’s going to take more than a plane crash to get rid of me,” I say, trying for cheer, and realizing too late that the sentence falls flat.

“Good,” Brian says. “That’s good.”

“I have to get my staples removed in a few days. Kieran can do it.”

He nods. We stare at each other. The room is full of the conversation we are not having. He doesn’t say, Where is Wyatt? I don’t say, What happens next?

“Where’s Meret?” I ask finally.

Brian’s eyes flicker toward the staircase. “In her room.”

Every muscle in me wants to avoid the conversation we have to have, to run to her instead.

“Where is he?” Brian asks.

I drag my gaze to his. “At a hotel,” I say.

Brian’s hands ball into fists at his sides; I watch him force his features smooth again.

“You can’t keep doing this,” I say.

“Doing what?”

“Treating me like I’m made of glass.”

“I’m not treating you like anything.”