Kalinda starts. She's back in the familiar chair, her neck cramped, the air stale, her clothing clammy. It's midnight or something close to it. The night outside the window is polluted and a little too bright, and the hospital's dim and quiet, just the odd pat and squeak of rubber soles across linoleum as the night staff walks by Alicia's door.
Then Alicia whimpers again, and Kalinda realizes what woke her. In sleep, the strain is clear on Alicia's face and the parts of her body that can jerk do so over and over, small, intense, painful movements. Kalinda can't watch, so she leans over and touches Alicia's good shoulder, realizing as she does that it may be a mistake. "Alicia, wake up." Alicia makes a fearful, strangled sound that Kalinda doesn't know the word for. She shivers. "Alicia. Alicia."
Alicia's eyes flash open, and it seems to take her a few terrified minutes to recognize Kalinda. Kalinda grips her hand.
"You're safe," Kalinda says softly. "You're in the hospital, that's all. Everything's all right. You're here. I'm here. Nobody else. We're safe. It's all right." She's pretty sure these are the kinds of things people say when they want to soothe.
After a few seconds that stretch on for too long, the tension in Alicia's neck releases, and she falls back to her pillow. "I'm sorry."
"No," says Kalinda.
"Nightmare," Alicia says unnecessarily. Her voice is quiet and hard to hear, even more hoarse than it was that afternoon. Kalinda hopes she's not developing a cold. Losing her spleen, she knows, leaves Alicia much more vulnerable to infection.
"I thought the painkillers were supposed to knock those out of you," Kalinda says.
"No."
"I'm sorry."
Kalinda notices that she's sitting on the edge of Alicia's bed, Alicia's hand still in hers, her right hip pressed to Alicia's. She flushes with warmth and doesn't move. Alicia's eyes are liquid in the reflected light from the hallway, her cheekbones and hairline even finer in the dark. Kalinda stares at her while each woman's breath evens out.
"They won't …" The rest of what Alicia says is unintelligible.
"What?" says Kalinda.
Alicia tugs on her arm. Kalinda leans closer and hears Alicia's question, deep and soft in her throat. "They won't come after you, will they?"
"Who?"
"Whoever … killed him."
"I don't think so," says Kalinda, talking almost as quietly as Alicia is. "I'm not worried."
"Because you're you?" Alicia's breathing still seems labored. Kalinda wants to talk to a doctor in the morning. "Or because there's nothing to worry about?"
"There weren't a lot of people who knew about me, Alicia. There never were exactly, the way we lived then, and—especially not down here, not in Chicago. I kept him out of my real life, and he's never been—successful. You saw that. Not with friends or even—contacts. He's doesn't, um, he didn't …" Kalinda struggles for words, wondering why she's talking so much. "Endear himself."
"Except to you."
Kalinda bites her lip. "I suppose. Yeah."
"He said I was lucky," Alicia says, so softly that Kalinda has to lean even closer, feel Alicia's breath near her ear. "When I saw him. He said I wasn't going to suffer like you did."
"You mean, when it—not your nightmare?" Kalinda's a little confused, and she hates Nick and she's not ready to think about Alicia in any kind of pain or about him speaking. Her breast brushes Alicia's shoulder as she listens.
"Yes. I just thought about what he must have done to you, and he—His aim wasn't so—he thought I was going to die," Alicia says. Her breath tickles the skin on Kalinda's cheek and neck. "He was trying to hit my heart."
Kalinda turns her head, and her lips touch Alicia's.
It's sweet, so sweet that Kalinda forgets herself, though she's still careful not to put any of her weight on Alicia. Their lips and tongues brush together gently, gently. Alicia's good hand runs down Kalinda's arm, rests on her hip, and Kalinda feels Alicia's dry, soft skin underneath her own fingertips. It's frightening, to feel Alicia this fragile this close, but Kalinda doesn't want to stop, doesn't want to pull away.
Everything around Kalinda, everything that isn't Alicia, seems blurred and unreal, so much so that she wonders if she's absorbing some of Alicia's meds. Sweetness surges up in her, spreads through her limbs like vines. If she never feels anything else but this, she'll be all right.
When they stop, Kalinda lays her head next to Alicia's, taking up as little space as she can. She runs her fingers along Alicia's face and neck and shoulders, along the thin, sharp edges of her bones. Kalinda doesn't want to stop touching her. She doesn't even want to ask if this is all right, because then she might have to know. She leans in, her forehead to Alicia's temple.
"I wish I could hold you," Alicia whispers.
For some reason, that makes Kalinda giggle. Alicia laughs incredulously, as if in response to her laugh. It bubbles up to fill the dimness. Kalinda wishes she could hold Alicia, too, wishes she could slide off the hospital gown, take Alicia's breast between her lips, slide kiss by delicious kiss down Alicia's sunless skin and—
She hears herself breathing a little too heavily, and has to stop. Although she's pretty sure that the beeps that monitor Alicia's heartbeat have quickened.
"Am I hurting you?" Kalinda whispers.
"No." Alicia turns slowly, clumsy in the dark, and ends up kissing Kalinda's eyebrow. "No."
Apropos of next to nothing, Kalinda continues, "I never wanted to hurt you."
"I know."
"Even—before." Kalinda's voice is urgent; it's suddenly imperative that Alicia understands this. "Even back then. I know how it sounds, but it wasn't about you, it was—"
"Your husband," Alicia says. "Kalinda, I know. I've thought about it." She pauses. "I've thought about a lot."
Kalinda's not sure what to say to that. "Me too," she whispers uncertainly.
"You must have been …" Alicia searches and doesn't find a word.
As far as Kalinda's concerned, she was practical. Sex has never been a practical thing for Alicia, and really, right now, Kalinda can understand how sex with Alicia might make someone lose sight of all pragmatism. She doesn't think the word will go over well with Alicia, so she doesn't say anything at all for a while. Alicia looks at her, still searching.
"Alicia, I'm sorry," Kalinda whispers, her voice breaking, if quietly. As if Alicia hadn't been hurt enough before Kalinda came into her life. Kalinda hates what she's forced, in one form or another, upon Alicia, pains she knows because they are so familiar to her: the feeling that nothing, not even your own thoughts, belongs to you anymore, the feeling that you can never again be quite safe in your body.
"Stay with me," Alicia answers, quietly.
And although she knows how desperately uncomfortable it will be, how peculiar it will appear to the nurses in the morning, Kalinda unzips her boots, places them by the right side of Alicia's bed. With great difficulty, Alicia edges a couple of inches to the left, and Kalinda slides up against her, her cheek on Alicia's good shoulder. Slowly, Alicia turns her head and kisses Kalinda's hair, and Kalinda curls her arm between Alicia's breasts, her hand light on the hospital gown, and the steady beeping of Alicia's heart smoothes them both back into sleep.