A Forgotten Love

Chapter One

"You're never around Cathrine! How would you know anything about the children?!" Eleanor yelled at her wife. This wasn't their first fight of the day, but it was the loudest. Luckily their children were out of the house with friends. Neither of them wanted to fight in front of their children.

"That's a low blow! You know what it takes to do the research I do! Or can you not remember how to do anything outside of academics?"

The fight started over something small and stupid, neither one of them could remember what it had been. The last two years had been rocky in their relationship. Fights starting more frequently. Over smaller and smaller and smaller things. They were drifting apart and neither wanted to give up, but with their number of fights increasing it seemed there wasn't many more options.

Silence filled the air and created an empty space between them. Cathrine sighed, "This fight isn't going anywhere." She grabbed her keys and started towards the door.

"Where are you going? We are not done yet!"

"I'm going for a drive, Eleanor!"

"Oh sure run away like you always do when we fight! COWARD!" Eleanor yelled as the door closed on Cathrine's retreating back. "What an obnoxious woman. Infuriating and bullheaded." She watched Cathrine's car pull away from the drive at almost break neck speed. The car flew down their street and was lost from view. A small pang of worry wormed in her chest as she lost sight of her wife's car. But the anger returned and pushed the worry aside. Cathrine would slow down after a few streets and she'd still be wrong. Fueled by her frustration Eleanor took the opportunity of being alone in the house to get some work done. She had given up full-time research for academics when she and Cathrine had decided to adopt kids. She had a ton of things to grade. Grading would help her get her frustrations out. Nothing like tearing a poor college students research paper apart to make yourself feel better. Eleanor went off to her study.

She graded the first stack of homework from her introduction to biology class. It was an hour later. At some point into her grading the anger had left her and now all she felt was drained. It wasn't too unusual for Cathrine to take a long drive to cool down, but they rarely took more than an hour. Eleanor looked at the clock on her wall. Perhaps Cathrine had gone to her photo studio to catch up on the art she had been neglecting while away on her last trip. That was probably it, and if it was Eleanor wouldn't see her for awhile yet. She grabbed the next stack of stuff to grade and dove into it.

The stacks of graded work in front of her portrayed how long she had been sitting there. Still she had heard nothing from her wife. It was past midnight, and now Eleanor was getting worried. She had text and called, but gotten no response. This wasn't like her, or had this been the final straw in their relationship troubles? More worry came up as Eleanor thought and worried about different reasons why Cathrine wasn't home yet. The minutes ticked by as she paced the front room. She had checked with her kids and none of them had heard from her either.

She continued to pace, phone in hand. If she continued at this rate she would wear a hole through the floor. The ring and buzz of her phone snapped her out of her thoughts. She anxiously checked the caller ID to see if it was Cathrine. To her utmost surprise and dismay it wasn't, but the name on her phone showed the call was coming from Cathrine's sister. Cathrine and her sister hadn't spoken for over five years now. She pressed the answer button and lifted the phone to her ear.

"Jane? Uh hello," she said into the receiver.

"Hey Eleanor, been a long time."

"Yes, it has. Why are you calling? I'm kind of waiting for a phone call. Can I call you back?"

"No, I need to talk to you." Jane paused. She seemed to be trying to work up the strength to say something. "Are you looking for Cathrine?"

"How...?"

"You know how bad Cathrine is about filling out paperwork and going to the doctors. I guess she never updated her emergency contact information. The hospital just called me. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but there's been an accident. They wouldn't give me any details on the phone..." Eleanor felt her heart plummet to her stomach. Jane was still speaking, but Eleanor couldn't make out what the words were. Her mind was reeling at the fact that Cathrine was in an accident. What had happened?

"My god," she whispered to herself.

"El? El hey did you hear anything I just said?" Jane's voice came back into sharp focus. "Cathrine was taken to the Memorial Creek hospital. They said that you should go to the nurses desk at the ER. Someone will be able to tell you more of what's going on." Eleanor couldn't think of what to say. Her mind jumped to all the horrible possibilities of what could have happened. She felt her arms start to go numb. How could she move forward with her life if she lost her partner in it.

"El are you okay?" Jane's voice sounded distance as it came over the phone.

"I'm not sure," she whispered.

"Do you need someone to drive you to the hospital?"

"I think so, yes." Eleanor wasn't sure she could safely get behind the wheel of a car right now. She couldn't focus and it would be better to stay off the road.

"I will be there in twenty minutes. Take deep breaths. We don't know how bad Cathrine is right now. I'm coming to get you."

"Okay," Eleanor said. She sat down on her couch. "Stupid woman." Eleanor could feel the tears trying to form in her eyes. "If you've died on me... I'll never forgive you." A tear slid down her cheek.

The smell of stale coffee and antiseptic cleaner was not one that Eleanor had missed. Hospitals had a similar smell and feel to research labs. Two weeks of smelling only that was getting on her nerves. Add to that sleep deprivation and Eleanor wasn't doing very well. Cathrine had been in a medically induced coma for the past two weeks. She had a broken arm and femur. The worst part was she had had a brain bleed. They had done surgery and cleaned up the bleed. The doctor said that she should be waking any day now, but every day with no change wretched at Eleanor's soul. The last thing she had said were words born out of anger. She would never forgive herself if that was the last thing Cathrine ever heard her say. She squeezed the hand of the woman in the hospital bed.

"Cathrine you better wake up soon." She sighed and turned her mind back to the book she had been reading.