his relief, the nurse had stepped away from the desk so he didn't have to endure her frosty stare of accusation, or what he guessed would be her frosty stare of accusation. He'd mentally prepared a short speech about how being a good husband and father included anticipating the wants and needs of his wife and that included bringing her music - well, he could use the speech on the way out if she gave him the frosty stare.
He opened the door to Rachel's room slowly so as not to startle her - anticipating her warm smile of disapproval, but instead she appeared to be asleep and there was a very tall black man dressed in mint green standing next to her bed.
"What are you doing here?"
The man in mint green turned, startled. "You can see me?" He gestured to his chocolate-brown tie, and Charlie was reminded, just for a second, of those thin mints they put on the pillow in nicer hotels.
"Of course I can see you. What are you doing here?"
Charlie moved to Rachel's bedside, putting himself between the stranger and his family. Baby Sophie seemed fascinated by the tall black man.
"This is not good," said Mint Green.
"You're in the wrong room," Charlie said. "You get out of here." Charlie reached behind and patted Rachel's hand.
"This is really, really not good."
"Sir, my wife is trying to sleep and you're in the wrong room. Now please go before - "
"She's not sleeping," said Mint Green. His voice was soft, and a little Southern. "I'm sorry."
Charlie turned to look down at Rachel, expecting to see her smile, hear her tell him to calm down, but her eyes were closed and her head had lolled off the pillow.
"Honey?" Charlie dropped the CD he was carrying and shook her gently. "Honey?"
Baby Sophie began to cry. Charlie felt Rachel's forehead, took her by the shoulders, and shook her. "Honey, wake up. Rachel." He put his ear to her heart and heard nothing. "Nurse!"
Charlie scrambled across the bed to grab the buzzer that had slipped from Rachel's hand and lay on the blanket. "Nurse!" He pounded the button and turned to look at the man in mint green. "What happened..."
He was gone.
Charlie ran into the hall, but no one was out there. "Nurse!"
Twenty seconds later the nurse with the snake tattoo arrived, followed in another thirty seconds by a resuscitation team with a crash cart.
There was nothing they could do.
Chapter 2
2
A FINE EDGE
There's a fine edge to new grief, it severs nerves, disconnects reality - there's mercy in a sharp blade. Only with time, as the edge wears, does the real ache begin.
So Charlie was barely even aware of his own shrieks in Rachel's hospital room, of being sedated, of the filmy electric hysteria that netted everything he did for that first day. After that, it was a memory out of a sleepwalk, scenes filmed from a zombie's eye socket, as he ambled undead through explanations, accusations, preparations, and ceremony.
"It's called a cerebral thromboembolism," the doctor had said. "A blood clot forms in the legs or pelvis during labor, then moves to the brain, cutting off the blood supply. It's very rare, but it happens. There was nothing we could do. Even if the crash team had been able to revive her, she'd have had massive brain damage. There was no pain. She probably just felt sleepy and passed."
Charlie whispered to keep from screaming, "The man in mint green! He did something to her. He injected her with something. He was there and he knew that she was dying. I saw him when I brought her CD back."
They showed him the security tapes - the nurse, the doctor, the hospital's administrators and lawyers - they all watched the black-and-white images of him leaving Rachel's room, of the empty hallway, of his returning to her room. No tall black man dressed in mint green. They didn't even find the CD.
Sleep deprivation, they said. Hallucination brought on by exhaustion. Trauma. They gave him drugs to sleep, drugs for anxiety, drugs for depression, and they sent him home with his baby daughter.
Charlie's older sister, Jane, held baby Sophie as they spoke over Rachel and buried her on the second day. He didn't remember picking out a casket or making arrangements. It was more of the somnambulant dream: his in-laws moving to and fro in black, like tottering specters, spouting the inadequate clichés of condolence: We're so sorry. She was so young. What a tragedy. If there's anything