Author's Note: Hello again everyone! Thank you all for reading, and once again please let me know what you think. The title for this interlude comes from the song "The Dance" by Garth Brooks. If you're familiar with the song, sorry that it's ominous as fuck related to this update. If you're not familiar with it...well, apologies in advance because of Reasons. Welp, that's all for now, enjoy!
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Interlude 7 - To Miss the Dance
Erik
The moment that I recognized Christine's voice, calling to get my attention from the doorway of the surgical service locker room, I immediately turned around to respond to her, and I smiled at the sight of her waiting for me as I spoke. We had been working the same shift hours that day - a rare enough occurence that the change in our schedules had required each of us to rearrange much of our daily routine, both inside of our respective departments in the hospital, as well as at home. But in spite of that relatively minor inconvenience, the real overlying benefit to be considered was having the opportunity to share our commute back to Schaumburg, to steal a bit more time alone together during the trip; because although we'd worked through the same shift, otherwise we hadn't been given many chances to see each other throughout the rest of that day, and I'd just been missing her, plain and simple.
It drove me insane to have her nearby, yet rarely able to be with her for very long even so. Exchanging text messages every now and again wasn't enough for either of us, nevermind the silences that happened in between each of those short conversations. Though, that in itself wasn't necessarily unusual for a given workday, to be fair - but this time around, it had bothered me just the same. So, once we were finally free to leave for the night, each of us looking forward to our upcoming drive back home, I tried not to waste any more time actually leaving work in the hospital with my wife. After I'd finished changing out of my scrubs and back into street-clothes, I straightened up and slammed my locker shut before I approached Christine by the door, kissing her soundly in a greeting that I'd been impatient to offer.
"It's good to see you again," she said, still smiling after we'd parted. She didn't move to leave the embrace we'd taken up while she continued, "I missed you. How was the last part of your shift?"
"Long," I responded emphatically, "Are you ready to go?"
She nodded, taking my hand securely in her own before pulling me into the hallway and toward the elevator bank as she spoke, "I called Sahra, talked to Jo for a minute."
"How is she?"
Christine smiled fondly, "Great. She sounded about ready for us to get home, though."
I really wasn't surprised to hear that. Josephine had generally handled being left with the Khans or her other baby-sitters well - behavior certainly on par with most other ten-year-olds, at any rate - but there was also a definite limit to her patience with the arrangement.
On that point, we'd indulged her whenever doing so was possible. When the school day was over and she wasn't staying at a friend's house, or occupied with some other activity, Josie made it clear that she would rather be at home with one or both of her parents, and honestly, that preference was fine by me. I'd had no intention or inclination to keep her with us at all hours, of course, but I didn't want her always so far from home, either. Christine and I were very much in agreement on that idea; because beyond the obvious fact that we'd needed to balance a proper home- and social-life for our child, our reasons had admittedly stemmed from something larger. Simply put, Christine and I just didn't have our own families to turn to for so long, and we'd both carried that pain even now, so many years down the road. Therefore, it became an unspoken agreement between us that our own daughter wouldn't have to face that same burden - not if we could prevent it. Today had been one of only a handful of exceptions to the rule, but I still wasn't thrilled with it; in turn, I couldn't help the sharp pang of guilt I felt at having to acknowledge that.
The automated bell for the elevator rang overhead, breaking me away from my thoughts, and I was immensely grateful for the distraction that the noise had offered - there was absolutely no reason for me to be even remotely upset about anything then, nor did I want to be.
Honestly, this was probably the happiest I'd felt, the most functional I'd been in my life thus far - moreover, these last years had proven themselves to be the longest that I'd managed to remain within the confines of normalcy. And I wanted to keep it that way, for my family's sake as much as my own. I loved being able to face my reflection in the mirror every morning without the shame of my past mistakes staring back, threatening to overwhelm me and to destroy what my wife and I had steadily built together. Dwelling on everything that I'd done wrong or who I'd lost wasn't going to do anything but serve to bring more harm - I knew that much by then - and although I'd never be cured of the anxiety or the alcoholism or any of the other issues that had brought me down to my worst, it seemed that I'd finally reached a point that I could better control myself, regardless of other factors. As such, I wasn't going to allow some free-floating anxiety to disrupt that pattern now. So I took a deep breath, stepped onto the elevator with Christine, and reminded myself that we were going home - reminded myself that everything was fine.
Remaining hand-in-hand as we walked, Christine and I spoke casually on our way to the parking garage, simply catching up on any of the relevant information we might've missed since we'd last seen each other. But once we set out on the road to leave the city, we soon chose not to talk about much of anything at all, opting instead to allow a companionable silence to settle down over us, enveloping the small space we shared with a sense of familiarity that I'd greatly needed to feel then. She hadn't known for sure that I'd just had that small panic attack inside, but she more than likely suspected that I wasn't nearly as calm as I'd been before, somehow feeling that nervousness rising within me as she stood by my side; in response, she turned up the radio volume early on in the journey out to Schaumburg, and I'd relaxed that much further as I listened to her voice humming sweetly along with the music. Without looking away from the road, without even having to think about something that had become so second-nature to me, I reached over the center console and took her hand tightly in mine, at ease with this aspect of our relationship, a part of us that hadn't faded with the years we'd spent together. It was something we learned to make the most of - and when I glanced over to see her smiling, I was grateful that we had.
Though, perhaps gratitude meant nothing for us in the end - because despite so many strides forward, that part of our life was unexpectedly and irrevocably shattered just days later.