Love on Life Support

I was going to divorce my husband. "Janet, we're not young anymore.

Agonizing all the time over whether we love each other or not—it's kind of boring." After he turned down yet another long phone call with me, my husband gave me his answer.

He wasn't cheating. He hadn't done anything most people would call a dealbreaker. To everyone else, he was still a rising star in medicine, the best of his generation.

He'd even given a $5,000 gift when my sister got married. Everyone thought a husband like that was beyond reproach.

Only I knew that a marriage where love no longer needed to be talked about had no reason to go on. Chapter 1 Alistair wasn't the kind of man who knew how to express his feelings.

He'd become a lead cardiac surgeon at Bonneville Medical Center while he was still young.

Years of highpressure surgeries had turned staying calm and rational at all times into something close to an occupational hazard. I was supposed to understand him.

But then I saw Scarlett Royce's Instagram. There was a twohour time difference. At that moment, it was already late evening in Boston.

She was in workout clothes, hugging a lamppost, pretending to be completely wiped out for a selfie.

The caption: [Ugh, someone dragged me out for conditioning again.] In the corner of the photo stood the man who had just turned down a long phone call with me, the one who'd told me he was tired and about to go get some rest.

Alistair. I couldn't help myself.

I took a screenshot and sent it to him: [What, so a night run with Scarlett isn't boring?] Half an hour later, just as the wedding march started up at the evening ceremony, I finally got Alistair's reply: [Who says I'm here with her?

Two other colleagues are here too.] [Okay, Jan. Next time I'll give you a full report.

Happy?] I watched my sister and her new husband up on the stage, promising to love and cherish each other, and my eyes stung.

When exactly had I gotten used to Alistair's indifference? Two offhand lines of explanation from him, and I'd almost softened.

I closed my eyes for a moment and forced myself not to give in.

I typed and deleted, typed and deleted, and finally sent: [Alistair, when are you coming back to the apartment?] [There's something I need to talk to you about.] Four years of dating.

Two years of marriage. We used to have endless things to say to each other, an endless urge to share everything. And still we'd ended up here, falling apart.

Looking back now, maybe my marriage to Alistair had gone wrong a long time ago. Last summer, I spent two months in a livein intensive training program.

When I came back to the hospital, having passed my cardiovascular nurse specialty certification, there was a new face at Alistair's side.

When I went down to the cafeteria for dinner, the nurse manager told me the girl was an anesthesiologist who'd transferred over from the neighboring campus.

Her name was Scarlett Royce.

I was holding my tray, about to sit down next to Alistair and say hi to her, when she stopped me with a serious look: "Now, Nurse, no using this as an excuse to hit on him. Our Dr.

Monroe already has a wife." Alistair laughed and introduced me. "This is my wife." She looked surprised for a second, then took out her phone, and we followed each other on Instagram.

Her eyes swept over my badge, and she shot Alistair a look that was half pout, half scolding: "And here I thought Mrs. Monroe would be some superstar specialist too.

Turns out she works at the nurses' station right here in our center." "Honestly, Dr. Monroe, you never even mentioned it.

You made me look like such an idiot." Chapter 2 After Scarlett left, Alistair took my hand. "Why so down?" I said it straight out. "Don't you think everything Dr.

Royce said was basically hinting that I'm not good enough for you?" But his eyes were smiling. "Scarlett's a little blunt.

It's not just you—half the time she doesn't even spare my feelings." "But what can you do?

Anesthesiologists are a scarce resource for us surgeons." "You have no idea how hard I worked to poach her." Through the whole meal, Scarlett was all Alistair talked about.

He complained that she had the worst stamina on the team, and at the same time he got her an extra latenight meal at the cafeteria counter.

After making a point of saying no cilantro, he turned and teased me: "Scarlett's bark is worse than her bite. She left just now on purpose to give us some space.

She barely touched her food." "I've got another surgery later.

If her blood sugar crashes and she passes out, that'll be a real problem." That day, every word Alistair said was like a little hammer chipping at my heart.

Not fatal, but enough to leave cracks. And once life starts putting on the pressure, a relationship with cracks in it becomes a burden.

On our anniversary, I specifically swapped shifts to get the day off so I could celebrate with Alistair. But he went dark. It was late at night by then.

The nurse manager tried to reassure me: "Dr. Monroe just finished a valve replacement.

He was in the OR for almost ten hours." "Maybe he's just exhausted and fell asleep somewhere?" I searched the whole hospital, top to bottom, so frantic I almost called the police.

Passing through the lobby on the first floor, something made me glance across the street.

Under the dim yellow light of the little bar, Alistair and Scarlett sat side by side at the counter. Their glasses clinked softly. They were talking and laughing.

That little bar had been our secret spot back when Alistair and I were dating.

On the message wall covered in sticky notes, there was the one Alistair had childishly written for me during my clinical rotations in nursing school, after an attending surgeon chewed me out until I cried: "I hope he goes bald." There was the one I put up, full of fight, after I got hired on at the hospital: "I'm going to work my way into the OR and fight side by side with my boyfriend." I had cried here, laughed here, even said yes to Alistair's proposal here.

Now someone else had barged in. It was almost midnight when Alistair came home.

I sat numbly on the couch and asked him, "Why didn't you answer your phone?" It took him a beat to pull out his phone, and then it dawned on him. "I didn't even notice.

My phone died." I wouldn't let it go. "You had no time to spend our anniversary with me, but you had time to go drinking with Scarlett?" He paused in the middle of taking off his jacket.

He took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Jan, I'm under pressure too.

I need someone to vent to." Six months earlier, the department chief had retired, and a lot of complex cases had landed on Alistair.

Of course I knew he was under a lot of pressure, but— "Why can't the person you vent to be me? Why does it have to be Scarlett?" "Alistair, I'm your wife.

I'm the person closest to you." Holding back his impatience, he hung up his jacket. "Because she can discuss surgical plans for heart valve patients with me." "She can give me input on whether to go with a reconstruction or a reimplantation.

Can you?" When he saw the tears in my eyes, he sighed, and his tone softened a little: "The patient I operated on today is elderly, and he's a prominent figure at a wellknown company.

The hospital's paying special attention to his condition." Chapter 3 "There are reporters camped outside the ICU right now. I have to be on call around the clock, too.

If he develops serious postop complications, we'll have to take him back in for emergency surgery." "Jan, let's each just do our own jobs and stop making trouble for each other, okay?" Moods seem to be contagious.

Suddenly I felt exhausted too, and all at once I lost every urge to say anything. "So in your eyes, me caring about you is just making trouble?" I didn't say another word to Alistair until bed.

While I was half asleep, he wrapped his arms around me from behind: "Jan, I let my anxiety get the better of me tonight.

I said things too harshly." "When we go to Mass General next month for the visiting program, let's pick a day to make up our anniversary, okay?" It turned out Alistair had just gotten word that the patient was out of the critical period.

A string of kisses followed. I grumbled, still annoyed, "Then I want to ride the swan boats. And I want to watch the sunset by the Charles River." He held me tighter. "Okay.

Whatever you want, babe." Over the next month, I submitted a clinical nursing research proposal based on the visiting program's plan.

If it went on to be published in a top nursing journal, I could think about applying for a promotion. Everything seemed to be heading in the right direction.

Then the list for the visiting program came out. My spot had gone to Scarlett.

Fuming, I stormed into Alistair's office: "You know how many nights I stayed up fighting for that spot." "Back then I was writing the research paper and squeezing in time to study for my critical care nursing certification exam.

I didn't even have time to eat." "How could you just swap me out with one offhand word?" As if he'd seen my reaction coming, Alistair had his brows knit tight too: "You think this was an easy decision for me?" "When HR submitted the list to hospital administration, Scarlett had only just transferred to the heart center.

I only found out yesterday that her application got left out." "How can a medical team go without an anesthesiologist?

If it weren't for the good of the whole team, I wouldn't want to replace you either." As he spoke, he reached out to hold me: "Jan, I know this isn't fair to you." "When I get back from the program I'll take some time off, and we can still make up our anniversary." I stepped back, out of his reach: "You think I'm throwing a fit because we can't celebrate our anniversary?" "This was my chance to build clinical experience, to move toward nursing research…" But he suddenly laughed. "All these highminded reasons.

Isn't it really just that you can't stand Scarlett?" My selfcontrol went up in flames in an instant.

I couldn't stop myself from shouting at him: "Alistair, how many times does this make?

When have you ever respected me?" "Before, when you were stressed about surgery, you went drinking with Scarlett behind my back. I understood you. I trusted you.

I put your feelings first." "But why does my career have to make way for yours too?" He looked at me coldly: "We're husband and wife.

Do we really need to draw such hard lines between what's yours and what's mine?" "Janet, look at yourself right now.

There's a limit to how unreasonable you can be." "Anyway, I've made my decision. You'll have to accept it." No. I didn't accept it.

The research project I'd spent the better part of a year preparing was down the drain. If I couldn't make the promotion review, there'd be no hope of moving up for another year.

How was I supposed to swallow that? I immediately filed an appeal with the hospital. Chapter 4 The final say on the matter fell to the heart center's management committee.

After all, I was the one in the right. I'd assumed I would get my spot back without any trouble. But when the vote came in, I lost, three to two.

Alistair's deciding vote for Scarlett cost me the spot for good. After that day, Alistair and I went into a cold war.

On the morning he left, he wheeled his suitcase out without so much as a glance back at me. For a whole month, we didn't have one complete phone call.

Our chat history was filled with his flat, emotionless— [Going to lunch.] [Busy.] [Going to sleep.] I only found out how he was doing by scrolling through the news.

In the video, he calmly told the camera that the Bonneville team had made a key breakthrough in minimally invasive valve repair.

As polished and composed as ever, at the top of his game. I seemed to be the only one stuck in the mire of my feelings.

Two days later, on my sister's wedding day, Alistair finally remembered to get in touch: "Did you get the wedding gift I had someone drop off?" "I got a rare day off today, so I made a special trip to Newbury Street and bought those handmade chocolates you've been dying to try." "I used to think the little mouse shapes were so ugly, but seeing them in person, they're actually kind of cute." On the other end of the line, he sounded light and cheerful.

Like we'd never fought at all. It was a happy day. I chose to forget the unpleasantness too.

I wanted to ask him when he'd be back, to tell him about the funny things that happened at my sister's wedding. But some people are just born to hurt others. His time was precious.

His love was made of gold. And he was too stingy to give me either one. Before the ceremony, my sister wanted me to give the toast in our mom's place.

I froze for a second, then said no. Because I realized that when I saw someone else's sweet love story, my first reaction was envy, and my second was pessimism.

It was only in that moment that I understood. I was withering in my marriage. Dying. My phone kept vibrating, pulling me back.

When I saw the name on the screen, I took a deep breath and rehearsed what I'd say about the divorce in my head.

But when the call connected, Alistair's voice was full of joy: "Jan, you're pregnant?" "Why didn't you tell me something this big sooner