Blue on Blue

Chapter Two

Steady beeps. Ticking clock. The distant ringing of phones. There's a sort of rhythm to it all. Beep. Tick. Ring. Shoes clunk against the floor. Voices join the sound procession, adding muffled tones to the mix. Beep. Tick. Ring. Clunk. Chatter. 

Maggie taps her finger.

Connie gasps.

"She's moving. Joe, she's moving. Get the nurse!" 

Maggie snaps her eyes open. 

Connie rushes to her bedside. "Maggie. Honey, I'm here."

A nurse paces through the door with Joe at her heels. She pushes buttons on the heart monitor and tugs at wires and tubes coming out of Maggie's arms and nose.

"Where am I?" Maggie winces. She rubs at her throat. "Why's it feel like I swallowed sandpaper?" 

The nurse shines a flashlight in her eyes and presses a stethoscope against her chest. "You're in the hospital." 

Maggie's forehead scrunches with confusion. "Hospital?"

"Small sips," the nurse says holding a straw to Maggie's lips.

"Ouch," Maggie winces again, sipping the cold water. 

The nurse scribbles on a stack of papers attached to a clipboard. "The doctor is making his rounds and the hospital psychologist will be here soon to see you." 

Connie's eyebrows stitch together. "Did you say a psychologist?" Her eyes dart to Joe and then return to the nurse. "Why a psychologist?"

"Protocol." The nurse tucks the pen into her pocket and hangs the clipboard at the end of the bed. "Maggie is a lucky young lady, you know." 

Connie's eyes grow wide with worry. 

The nurse paces out of the room, just as quickly as she entered it, muttering something about miracles and second chances.

Joe stares at Connie. His mouth is a thin, hard line. "It's not the same," he says through clenched teeth.

Connie shakes her head. "It's exactly the same," her voice a harsh whisper. "Exactly." She rests her hand on Maggie's arm. "Tell me what happened." 

Maggie shrugs. 

Connie pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "You can tell me."

"Con," Joe interrupts. "Don't push her." 

Connie shoots him a laser beam glare. 

"I'm just saying that maybe if you didn't push her to talk in the first place --"

"P-Lease tell me you're not blaming me for this, Joe," Connie yelps wagging her finger in his face. 

Maggie shields herself with a blanket as a tornado of swear words and insults whips and spins around the room. If only she could make them stop, but since Connie got that new job, they NEVER stop! 

Day after day, it's the same stupid fight: Joe comes home drunk after work. Connie lays into him for spending more time at Benny's than he does at home. Joe accuses her of cheating on him with her new boss, Jonathan. Connie adamantly denies having an affair. Joe doesn't believe her. On and on and on until doors slam and an eerie silence fills the apartment. Maggie never met Jonathan, but they throw around his name so much, sometimes it feels like he lives with them – as if he has a chair at the kitchen table.

"Stop this!" a woman in a white lab coat yells, pushing through the privacy curtain. She frantically waves her hands in the air. "Stop! Or I'll call security." Her once smooth hair and pressed lab coat are as ruffled as a wet bird's feathers.