Chapter 47

Daniel's hospital gown had small blue flowers on it, and I focused on those instead of the IV in his arm or the way he wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Morrison's going to file the divorce papers tomorrow," he said. His voice was rough from the breathing tube they'd removed an hour ago. "We can expedite it. Six weeks, maybe eight."

I stood in the doorway. My hand was still on the handle.

"CoreStone has a foundation," he continued, like he was presenting a quarterly report. "They sponsor visas for culinary professionals. Morrison already talked to them. Your green card application will go through their program. Completely separate from our marriage. Legal. Clean."

The jade bracelet on my wrist felt suddenly heavy.

"You had Morrison arrange all this while you were in surgery?"

"Before." Daniel shifted against the pillows. The movement made him wince, but he kept his expression neutral. "I called him from the bridge. Before Richard showed up."

"You called your lawyer from a bridge."

"I needed to make sure you'd be protected. If something happened to me."

The fluorescent lights hummed. Someone's IV pump beeped in the next room.

"So you've got it all figured out," I said.

"The foundation sponsorship is legitimate. You've got the credentials. The restaurant experience. It's not charity, it's—"

"Let me guess. A practical solution."

He finally looked at me. His left eye was bloodshot from the impact with the water, and there was a bruise spreading across his cheekbone. "Nora—"

"No." I stepped into the room and let the door close behind me. "You don't get to do this again."

"Do what?"

"Solve my problems while pushing me away." My nails dug into my palms. "You're really good at it. I'll give you that. You married me to fix my immigration status. You took the fall for Richard to protect your family's company. And now you're divorcing me to save me from being tied to a convicted felon. It's very noble. Very self-sacrificing."

"It's the right thing to do."

"For who?"

Daniel's teeth pressed together. He looked away, back toward the window where early morning light was starting to filter through the blinds.

"You'll have your restaurant," he said. "Your green card. Your future. You won't be—"

"Tied to you?"

"Dragged down by me."

I moved closer to the bed. The vinyl chair beside it was still warm from where Morrison had been sitting.

"Did you eat?" Daniel asked.

"Don't."

"Priya brought food. There's—"

"Daniel. Stop."

He went completely silent. That thing he did when he was cornered, when words wouldn't work anymore.

I sat down in the chair. My clothes still smelled like river water despite the hospital scrubs someone had found for me.

"You kept me afloat," I said. "In the water. Morrison told me. You had a punctured lung and you kept me afloat while I talked about gochujang brownies."

"You were going into shock. I needed to keep you talking."

"And then you told me to focus on my future. Not our future. Mine." I leaned forward. "Because you'd already decided you were going to push me away. Even then. Even while you were drowning."

The IV pump beeped. Daniel's heart rate monitor showed a steady rhythm.

"I'm going to prison, Nora. Two to five years, minimum. Morrison thinks he can argue it down, but—"

"But you don't want him to."

His eyes snapped back to mine.

"You don't want to fight it," I continued. "Because fighting it means admitting you want something for yourself. And you don't know how to do that."

"That's not—"

"When did you last want something just because you wanted it? Not because it solved a problem or protected someone or fixed a situation. When?"

The the pause extended longer than comfortable. Outside the room, a nurse's shoes squeaked on linoleum.

"I wanted you," Daniel said finally. His voice was barely above a whisper. "That first day you came to my office with the lunch box. I wanted you to come back."

Something in my chest cracked open.

"But wanting things doesn't—" He stopped. Started again. "My father wanted things. He wanted to build something that mattered. He wanted to prove he could make it in this country. He wanted—" Daniel's hand curled into a fist on the blanket. "He worked himself to death wanting things. And I couldn't save him."

"You were seventeen."

"I should have seen it. The stress. The chest pains he kept dismissing. I should have—"

"Daniel."

"I can handle it. That's what he always said. I can handle it." His voice cracked. "And then he couldn't. And I've spent fifteen years making sure I never—" He stopped. Breathed. "Making sure I never need anyone the way he needed us. Making sure I can handle everything alone. Because if I can handle it, then no one else has to—"

"Die?"

The word hung between us.

Daniel's hand unclenched slowly. The IV tubing shifted.

"I don't need you to save me," I said. "I need you to let me choose you."

"You don't know what you're choosing."

"A man who jumps off bridges? Who keeps people afloat while drowning? Who arranges green card sponsorships from a hospital bed?" I reached for his hand. His fingers were cold. "Yeah. I do."

"Nora—"

"I love you."

The heart rate monitor skipped. Just once.

"You don't have to say it back," I continued. My thumb traced the comma-shaped scar on my forearm. "You don't have to feel the same way. But you don't get to decide for me. You don't get to divorce me to protect me from my own choices."

"I'm going to prison."

"I know."

"For years."

"I know."

"And you—" His voice broke. "You really want to stay married to me? Visit me in prison? Put your life on hold while I—"

"I want to stay married to you because I choose you. Not because of immigration. Not because of some arrangement. Because I love you and I'm choosing you and you don't get to take that choice away from me."

Daniel's eyes were wet. He blinked and a tear tracked down his bruised cheek.

"I'm terrified," he whispered. "That you'll realize I'm not worth it."

"Worth what?"

"Any of it. The waiting. The trial. The—" He gestured vaguely at himself. "This."

I stood up. The chair scraped against the floor. I leaned over the bed rail and kissed him. His lips were chapped and he tasted like antiseptic and river water and something underneath that was just him.

When I pulled back, his hand had come up to cup my face.

"I'm still terrified," he said.

"Good. Me too."

"Yeah?"

"I spent five years trying to save my parents' restaurant. I lost myself in it. Completely. And I'm terrified I'll do the same thing with you. That I'll make you my whole world and forget I'm supposed to have my own life too."

"So what do we do?"

"We figure it out." I sat back down but kept holding his hand. "We have really hard conversations about what this actually looks like. We set boundaries. We probably mess up a lot. We—"

"Let's just—" Daniel stopped. Smiled slightly. "Sorry. That's your thing."

"You can borrow it."

"Let's just take it one day at a time?"

"That's terrifyingly practical of you."

"I'm a terrifyingly practical person."

"You jumped off a bridge."

"For a very practical reason."

I laughed. It came out half sob. "God. We're a mess."

"Yeah." His thumb traced circles on the back of my hand. "Morrison's going to be pissed. He already drafted the divorce papers."

"He can undraft them."

"That's not a word."

"It is now."

The morning light was getting stronger. It turned the blue flowers on Daniel's hospital gown almost purple.

"So we're doing this?" he asked. "Actually doing this?"

"What's 'this'?"

"Being married. For real. Not as an arrangement."

"I think we've been doing it for real for a while now," I said. "We just didn't have the words for it."

"I'm going to be a terrible husband from prison."

"You're already a terrible husband. You never take out the trash."

"We have a service for that."

"See? Terrible."

He smiled. Actually smiled. It made the bruise on his cheekbone shift.

"I need to tell Morrison," Daniel said. "About the divorce papers. About—" He paused. "About us."

"What are you going to tell him?"

"That my wife is staying. And he needs to focus on the defense instead of the exit strategy."

"Your wife." I tested the words. "That's going to take some getting used to."

"We've been married for eight months."

"Fake married."

"It felt pretty real when you jumped off that bridge."

"You jumped first."

"Because Richard was going to—" Daniel stopped. His expression shifted. "He's in custody, right? Morrison said they arrested him."

"Yeah. Last night."

"And Marcus?"

"Also arrested. Morrison said they're both being charged with fraud and embezzlement. Maybe more."

Daniel's hand tightened on mine. "Richard's going to fight it. He's got resources. Connections."

"Let him fight."

"He'll try to drag me further in. Make it look like I was more involved than I was."

"Then we deal with it. Together." I squeezed his hand back. "You don't have to handle it alone anymore."

The door opened. A nurse came in with a blood pressure cuff and a tablet.

"Sorry to interrupt," she said. "Need to check vitals."

I started to stand, but Daniel didn't let go of my hand.

"She can stay," he said.

The nurse smiled. "Of course. This'll just take a minute."

She wrapped the cuff around Daniel's arm. The machine whirred and beeped. His blood pressure was slightly elevated but stable. She made notes on the tablet.

"Doctor will be in around eight," she said. "You're doing great. Keep resting."

She left. The door swung shut behind her.

"I should let you rest," I said.

"Stay."

"Daniel—"

"Please. Just—" He shifted over slightly in the bed, wincing. "There's room."

"You just had surgery."

"I'm aware."

"The doctor said—"

"The doctor said I'm doing great. You heard her."

I looked at the narrow hospital bed. At Daniel's bruised face and the IV in his arm and the way he was looking at me like I might disappear if he blinked.

"Okay," I said. "But if you pop a stitch, I'm telling Morrison it was your idea."

"Deal."

I climbed onto the bed carefully, fitting myself against his right side where there were fewer injuries. His arm came around me. The hospital gown was thin and I could feel his heartbeat against my shoulder.

"This is wildly uncomfortable," I said.

"Yeah."

"And probably against hospital policy."

"Definitely."

"And your lawyer is going to walk in any minute."

"Probably."

I tilted my head up to look at him. "Worth it?"

"Yeah." He kissed my forehead. "Yeah."

We lay there in silence. The morning sounds of the hospital filtered through the door—carts rolling, voices murmuring, machines beeping their steady rhythms.

"Nora?"

"Mm?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For choosing me. Even when I was trying to make it impossible."

I pressed closer. "You're welcome. But don't do it again."

"Do what?"

"Try to make decisions for me. Try to protect me from my own choices. Try to—"

"Handle it alone?"

"Yeah. That."

"I'll try. But I've been doing it for fifteen years. I'm going to mess up."

"Then I'll call you on it. And you'll apologize. And we'll figure it out."

"That simple?"

"God, no. It's going to be a disaster. But it'll be our disaster."

He laughed. It made him wince, but he kept laughing anyway.

"What?" I asked.

"I'm lying in a hospital bed with a punctured lung and broken ribs, facing two to five years in prison, and I'm—" He stopped. "I'm happy. How is that possible?"

"Because you're not alone anymore."

"I was never alone. I had my mother. My uncle. The company."

"That's not the same as letting someone in."

His arm tightened around me. "No. It's not."

We stayed like that until the light through the window turned from gray to gold. Until my hip started to ache from the awkward angle and Daniel's breathing had evened out into something close to sleep.

I was starting to drift off myself when he spoke again.

"Okay so—"

I lifted my head. He was using my phrase. My anxious verbal tic.

"Did you just—"

"Okay so," he repeated, and there was something in his voice that made me smile despite everything. "We're really doing this. Real marriage. Real partnership. Real—"

The door burst open.

Morrison stood in the doorway, his suit rumpled and his expression grim.

"Daniel," he said. "We have a problem."

I sat up. Daniel's hand found mine automatically.

"What kind of problem?" Daniel asked.

Morrison stepped into the room. He closed the door behind him with deliberate care.

"Richard made bail an hour ago. Posted it himself. Two million dollars."

"That's not a problem," Daniel said. "That's expected. He's got the resources."

"He's disappeared."

The words landed like stones.

"What do you mean disappeared?" I asked.

Morrison looked at me, then back at Daniel. "He left the courthouse with his lawyer. Got into a car. The car was found abandoned twenty minutes later at a parking garage downtown. No Richard. No lawyer. No trail."

Daniel's hand tightened on mine.

"He ran," Daniel said.

"Or he's planning something." Morrison moved closer to the bed. "Either way, we need to—"

The lights in the hallway flickered. Once. Twice.

Then the fire alarm started screaming.