The call caught Yulia sorting through invoices. A typical Thursday, stuffy in the office; the air conditioner had broken down last week, and no one was in a hurry to fix it. An unfamiliar number flashed on the screen. She wanted to decline it, but her finger slid onto the green button on its own.
“Yulia Vladimirovna Makarova? This is the admissions department of City Hospital No. 3 calling. Your husband, Gleb Andreevich, has been admitted after a traffic accident.”
Yulia barely remembered what happened next. It seemed her phone fell. She grabbed her bag and ran out, without turning off her computer or locking the office. In the taxi, she sat clutching the seatbelt, whispering something incoherent. Not even a prayer, but a plea addressed to no one in particular: just let everything stay as it was, just let her home not fall apart, just let her not lose what she had built for five years.
Strangely, she hardly thought about Gleb himself, about his pain. She was terrified of the void that could open up if something happened to her familiar way of life.
The traumatology department greeted her with the smell of bleach and the hum of fluorescent lamps overhead. Yulia rushed down the corridor until an orderly pointed her to the right door. Gleb was lying on a high bed, his leg in a cast suspended in traction, a fresh bruise turning purple under his eye. She rushed to him, grabbed his hand, and the words tumbled out on their own:
“Oh God, Gleb, how are you? Does it hurt? What are the doctors saying? I was so scared when they called, I thought it was all over…”
“Thought you’d finally show up,” he interrupted without even turning his head. “I’ve been lying here since lunch. Where have you been?”
Yulia stopped mid-sentence, swallowing something bitter that had caught in her throat.
“They only called me an hour ago, I came right away.”
“An hour…” he grunted, staring at the ceiling. “Whatever, bring me some decent food, this hospital slop is nauseating. And buy some water, still water, you know the kind.”
She nodded, though he wasn’t looking at her, and went out into the corridor, convincing herself that her husband was just irritable from the pain. That a fracture was serious, and anyone in his place would be in a bad mood.
Near the next ward, on a shabby wooden bench, sat an elderly woman with a similarly casted leg. She stared towards the exit with the look of someone who has long since stopped waiting for anyone and has lost all hope. Her thin hands rested on her knees, her gray hair braided neatly.
“Do you need help?” Yulia asked, stopping.
The old woman raised her faded blue eyes to her.
“Thank you, dear. I just came out to sit for a bit, it’s stuffy in the ward.”
“And where are your relatives? Has anyone visited?”
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