Sing

CHAPTER 33.

JONATHAN

Fiona had gotten kicked in the chest once, at the riding academy, as she was making a token attempt to learn to check a hoof for splits. The thoroughbred had just gotten annoyed, and Fiona, who never listened to a damn thing anyone said, had been sitting in the wrong spot. She went flying. Two broken ribs and a bruised ego later, she quit riding.

I’d probably never see Fiona again to tell her getting defibrillated repeatedly felt the same as getting kicked in the chest by a horse looked.

Monica stood in the corner, wringing her hands like she wanted to break a bone. She was terrified. I must have gone into arrest at some point in our conversation. I forgot what I’d said.

“How are you feeling Mister Drazen?” asked the doctor, a young guy I’d seen pass through a couple of times. He looked at his chart and barked orders immediately after the question. The number of people in the room had doubled in the minute I was unconscious.

“Like a newlywed.”

“Congratulations.” He listened to my heart, eyes on an instrument panel. “You’ve taken quite a beating. I don’t know how many more times we can do this.”

“What’s the world record? I want to break it.”

“Stop trying to be funny,” Monica said from her corner.

“Joking in this situation is common, Miss,” the doctor said as he scribbled something on the chart, speaking medicalese to the nurse before and after his statement.

“What situation is that?”

My wife was about to verbally cross-check the doctor, I saw it in the fact that she wouldn’t look at me. She only had laser-hot eyes for the guy in the scrubs. As if he could feel her seething, he stopped mumbling nonsense to the nurse and turned to her.

“He needs a heart, Miss.”

“Or what?”

I could see the thrust of this conversation a mile away, even feeling like a bag of shit, with the hiss of oxygen tubes drowning out much of what was being said. If the doctor mentioned, implied, or thought about my death, she was going to go ballistic and get escorted out. I didn’t want her to have to negotiate reentry. Every minute without her was a minute wasted.

“Goddess?”

She didn’t answer.

“Monica,” I tried to put dominance in my voice, and I know I came up short, but as if hearing the intention and not the result, she turned toward me. “Go get my father for me, would you?”