These Three Words by Holly Jacobs

horrible moment together.
    Delving into my memories had eased my anxiety, at least for a minute. I hoped that revisiting a Piggly Wiggly, or remembering Anne’s E, or the joy of loving a child had softened the pain of Maude, James, and Harriet’s waiting as well.
    I continued down the hall to the bank of elevators and rode one to the fourth floor. I followed the signs down the hall. A nurse greeted me. “Can I help you?”
    “I’m here to see . . . Graham Grayson.” I hesitated over his name. Referring to him as Graham was difficult.
    “This way, ma’am,” a nurse with a harried look about her said as she ushered me toward what was more of an opening than a proper door.
    Gray’s room was little more than a cubby. It held a small window, a bed, a chair, and machines.
    Gray had always seemed so solid and strong. He’d fearlessly taken on the world.
    Now a tube snaked obscenely from his throat to a machine that I knew was breathing for him. Wires dangled from his chest and led to monitors. Another tube ran from an IV bag to his hand.
    I could hardly see Gray underneath it all.
    “It is a shock to see someone you love like this,” the nurse said kindly. “But it helps to remember that all this equipment is helping him.”
    For months, we’d lived apart. I’d gone days, even weeks, without seeing him or talking to him. Now, I’d give anything if he’d open his eyes and say my name. Just Addie . For a man who didn’t articulate much, he had a way of infusing just my name with so much . . . well, love. But more than that. When he said my name I felt his belief in me. I remembered so many moments when that one word had told me so much.
    “Ma’am?” the nurse said.
    I realized that I’d been ready to dive into a memory again. I forced myself to concentrate on the present. “The doctor said he could be like this for a while?”
    “Yes. Probably days. The doctors want to make sure his blood pressure is down and under control before they let him wake up.”
    “Because of the tear and the stent?” In the here and now, I felt as if I were trying to wade through mud. I felt as if I couldn’t hold on to the information they were telling me.
    But I slipped into the past with ease and reveled in the moments I shared with Gray. Moments I’d almost forgotten about in the pain of the last year were suddenly crystal clear.
    For months, there was one moment with Gray that stood in the forefront of my mind. It was the straw that broke our marriage’s back. I’d come to think of it as my straw moment . I thought about it a lot and I hadn’t been able to get past it enough to look back at some of our better moments.
    Until today.
    Until it could be too late.
    “Your husband,” she said, as if she could sense my thoughts and wanted to remind me Gray was still my husband, “will be sedated until he’s stronger and more stable. The longer he goes on, the better his odds.”
    She didn’t say goes on what. I knew she meant the longer he continued breathing—went on living—the better his odds were of surviving.
    I nodded.
    “You can sit with him until eight o’clock,” she continued. “Then we ask the families to go home and get some rest. You can come back in the morning refreshed and better able to cope with everything.”
    I looked at the clock. It was after four.
    I’d lost all track of time here.
    I had imagined that by now I’d have given Gray the papers and he’d have signed them. His signing the papers wouldn’t be enough to make our divorce official, but it would have been a symbolic end for me.
    And a new beginning.
    I’d thought by now I’d be sitting on the deck, watching the sun begin to set on my old life. I thought I’d be sipping a glass of wine and dreaming about what the next chapter of my life would look like.
    I hadn’t been able to figure out what I wanted that future to be, but I knew that the last year wasn’t it.
    “Mrs. Grayson, are you sure you’re okay?” the nurse