“Marleigh woke up.”
“What?”
It was nearly three o’clock in the morning and Patrick wasn’t sure he heard his mother in law, Yvonne, correctly.
“Patrick, Marleigh’s woken up from the coma.”
You’ve got to be kidding me, he thought, and other than that he was speechless. How do you respond to someone telling you that your wife has awaken from a five year coma? Patrick looked over at the place where his wife used to sleep and he shook his head. He had moved on. He wasn’t going to put his life on pause when he had no way of knowing the future. Right now he was in that same bed with another woman. It was the woman he had fallen in love with, and he no plans of turning back. He was not taking the news well.
“Patrick, are you there?”
“Yes, Yvonne. I’m still here.”
“You don’t seem too excited,” Yvonne said.
If only you really knew, he thought, but he couldn’t tell Yvonne that.
“Yvonne, it’s just so early in the morning, and I’m very tired, okay? I’ll visit Marleigh at the hospital tomorrow.”
“Do you remember the room number?”
Patrick knew Yvonne asked that question to be smart. She knew he had stopped visiting Marleigh a long time ago. He had stopped hoping for the best a long time ago, but again, he couldn’t tell Yvonne that.
“Refresh my memory about that room number Yvonne.”
“She’s in room 320.”
“Thanks. I’ll be there tomorrow,” Patrick said, and he hung up the phone before Yvonne could say anything else.
“Baby, what’s going on?”
Patrick looked into the eyes of his new love; Samantha Donaldson. Her hazel eyes shined beautifully against her caramel brown skin. She had irresistible lips and Patrick couldn’t stand it when his weren’t touching them. She had dimples as deep as the sea and when she smiled, he nearly melted at the sight. Her body was strong, toned, and firm, yet plump in all the right places. Her skin was spotless and smooth as silk. He loved to touch her, feel her, caress her, hold her. There was no way he was letting Samantha go.
“Baby! Stop gawking at me and tell me what’s happening. Who was that calling here at almost three o’clock in the morning?”
Samantha was sassy as ever, but Patrick loved that quality. He saw her sassiness as confidence, assertiveness, strength, and overall, sexiness. Samantha knew his wife was comatose. He had nothing to hide from her. But Patrick couldn’t find the strength to tell Samantha that Marleigh was now awake.
“Patrick, who is Yvonne, and what is it that she told you?”
Patrick didn’t respond. He wished with all his might that he was dreaming. He wished his whole life was a dream, and that hopefully, he’d wake up from it soon.
“Baby, what’s going on tomorrow? Who’s in the hospital?”
Patrick would’ve been told Samantha to shut up on a normal day. But today was in no way normal. Today, he’d received the ultimate shocker.
“Baby, talk to me! What is going on?”
Patrick still had no words. He turned the switch on his lamp, buried himself under the covers and closed his eyes.
“Whatever,” Samantha said. She too hid under the covers, but was still making comments under her breath.
What am I going to do? Patrick asked himself, and he asked that same question over and over again.
Finally, he sighed and said, “Marleigh woke up.”
“What?” Samantha said, and she shot straight up.
“That’s the same thing I said,” Patrick said. He sat up and turned the light back on.
“Why did she wake up?” Samantha said, in an ‘aww, man’ type of way.
“I go to see her tomorrow.”
Samantha stared at him for a while, and then she said, “Baby, what does that mean for us?”
Patrick honestly didn’t know. But he was afraid to tell Samantha that.
“Pat, baby, your silence is killing me,” Samantha said.
“Don’t ask me that, Sam. Marleigh’s car accident left her in a coma and that’s not her fault. I can’t just throw our relationship on her like that. She needs some time to…”
“To what? Pat I live here, honey. It’s not my fault that your wife woke up from her coma, and it’s not my fault that you and I met, dated and fell in love. So what, am I out of a home now? Do I lose you now? Huh?”
“Sam, I’m not saying any of that. And if it’s anybody’s fault that we met, dated and fell in love, then it’s mine. I knew my wife’s condition, and it was my choice to move on and pursue you. I’m sorry baby, okay?”
“That doesn’t answer my question, Pat. Where does this situation leave us?”
“It leaves you here, and it leaves me figuring out how the hell I’m going to deal with this mess.”
“So what you’re saying is, you’re going to leave me here, and you’re going to go somewhere else and figure this mess out?”
“Okay, let me rephrase. I’m going to stay here with you, and figure this mess out. Here. In this house.”
“And where will Marleigh go?”
More silence. Patrick couldn’t tell his own wife that she couldn’t move back in. But like so many other things, he couldn’t tell Samantha that.
“Once again, sweetie, the silence is killing me.”
“I’m sorry, Sam. But I…I can’t tell Marleigh that she can’t move back into her own home. You know that wouldn’t be right.”
“It would be right for me, though,” Samantha said.
Patrick looked at Samantha like she was crazy. He laid back down into the bed and rolled over, facing away from Samantha. He wasn’t trying to hear her opinion.
“Come on, Pat! I know it’s not Marleigh’s fault she got in that accident, but baby, please. You had to move on. What were you supposed to do? Wait until she died to move on? Some people stay in a coma for years. If no one pulls the plug on them, that is. You had to move on. There was no telling whether or not she was ever going to recover. She needs to understand that. Let her go live with the Yvonne person you were talking to.”
Patrick turned back around and looked at her, but the crazy expression hadn’t left his face. He said, “I want you to listen to yourself Sam.”
“And will she even remember you?” Sam asked, clearly ignoring Patrick.
“Sam, that’s enough. Look, let’s go back to bed. Tomorrow I’m going to visit Marleigh in the hospital. Perhaps she’ll remember me. Perhaps she won’t. But I need to be there.”
After what seemed like an hour of silence, Samantha said, “Fine.”
Patrick turned the light back off and laid back down in the bed. He closed his eyes, and this time, he actually went to sleep; but not for long. His dreams were rudely interrupted with visions of the confrontation between him and the two ladies in his life.
In his dream, he flat out told Marleigh that he’d moved on. In his dream he whips the divorce papers from out of nowhere and forces Marleigh to sign. Afterwards, right then and there, he gets on bended knee and proposes marriage to Samantha. Marleigh is left standing in the background, crying uncontrollably. All Patrick can do is laugh and tell her to pack her things, followed by the infamous, “and get out.”
But Marleigh doesn’t pack a thing. Instead, she runs into the kitchen and comes back out with a carving knife, and demands for Samantha to take the ring off her finger. She tells Samantha that the only person that’s leaving the house is her.
Samantha was frightened, but all Patrick did was laugh. Marleigh couldn’t think about blood without feeling dizzy, so Patrick saw no need to take her seriously; until she charged after them.
The three were in the living room, and in order to get out, they had to fight their way past Marleigh. But she was swinging that eight inch carving knife everywhere she could reach, and that left Patrick and Samantha afraid of what would get sliced in the process, so they surrendered.
Samantha removed the engagement ring, and Marleigh told Patrick revoke the offer of engagement. Patrick refused. He told her he couldn’t do it, because he was in love with Samantha, and wanted to marry her. Marleigh got closer to him, and she told him again to revoke the offer. But again, Patrick said no.
“Patrick,” Samantha yelled as Marleigh raised the knife in the air with both hands.
Both Patrick and Samantha closed their eyes and braced themselves for what they knew would be the inevitable: their deaths.
All of a sudden they heard a grunt, and on top of them fell Marleigh. She’d taken that knife and stabbed herself, and that was that last thing Patrick dreamt. He woke up sweating, with tears in his eyes. He was breathing fast. He was nearly hyperventilating.
Samantha got up from her side of the bed and yelled, “Oh, come on, Pat. What is wrong with you? You tell me to go back to bed, and now you’re sitting here having what? An asthma attack?”
“Sam, shut up? Okay? Just shut the hell up!”
“Okay, no he didn’t,” Samantha said, walking towards him. “Let me tell you something, sweetie. You may have been able to walk over your hope-to-be ex-wife, but you’re not going to have the same luck with me.”
“Sam, get off my back, okay. I have a lot to worry about right now. You could at least try to understand.”
Samantha backed off, but just a little. “I’m sorry, baby. But this situation is stressful for me too. You might…decide you want her back, and I…I can’t deal with that. I don’t want to deal with that. So try to understand my frustration too.”
Patrick understood, alright. The right thing to do was take his wife back and serve Samantha her walking papers. But his heart was telling him to do the opposite of that. Frustration was an understatement. There were no words to describe the impasse he’d come to.
“Baby, you don’t have anything to worry about. I love you.” He took Samantha in his arms and kissed her softly on the lips.
Samantha looked up at him and said, “I love you too, baby,” and then she rested her head on his shoulder, and held him tighter than she ever held him before.
Patrick sighed. He didn’t know why he told Samantha she didn’t have anything to worry about, because at this point, he just didn’t know if that was true.
