"Ah!"
The woman stumbled and dropped to the floor.
The impact sent me down too, the back of my head cracking hard against the fire hydrant beside me.
Warmth spilled out, and my vision blurred.
But not enough to keep me from seeing Clifford leap off the hospital bed and rush straight at me.
On instinct, I reached out to him.
He stepped right past me and lifted the woman off the ground, his face full of tenderness.
"Lindy, are you all right? Did it hurt?"
Then, without so much as a glance back, he snapped at me coldly.
"Are you blind, or in some hurry to get yourself killed—"
I drew my hand back and let out a small laugh at myself.
At how much I'd flattered myself.
Clifford went rigid, turned, and saw it was me, and his face darkened at once.
"Ada? It's you?"
Lindsay leaned against his chest, fighting back tears.
"Cliff, don't blame Ada. She cursed at me, she pushed me, and I deserve it. It's my fault you nearly died!"
With that, she slapped herself hard across the face and apologized to me.
"Ada, you're right. I deserve to die!"
I hadn't said a word, and already she was putting on her show.
And of course Clifford believed her.
He couldn't see my white face, couldn't see that I'd fallen too, and certainly didn't see the blood soaking into my black mourning dress.
He only raised his hand and slapped me.
"When Lindy said you refused to come to the hospital to be with me, that you cursed at her, I didn't believe her! But I never imagined you could be this vicious. You actually came all the way here just to pick a fight with her!"
"Do you have any idea that the smallest injury could kill her right now?"
"Are you taking your father's death out on her?"
"If you're angry, come at me. Why torment Lindy?"
His three questions, one after another, made me want to laugh. Laugh at eight years of devotion given to the wrong man.
"Don't laugh! Say something!"
I opened my mouth and only then tasted the rust filling it.
My throat hurt like I was swallowing razor blades, and I couldn't force out a single word.
Clifford took my silence for admission.
He grabbed me by the collar and forced me down.
"Apologize to Lindy! Or don't blame me for refusing to perform the rites at your father's funeral!"
Brendan came back with the medicine and saw me forced to my knees on the floor.
His eyes went wild as he shoved Clifford away and tried to lift me up.
Then his hand found the blood on my back.
Both his face and Clifford's changed, and the two of them moved at the same time to hold me.
Lindsay suddenly clutched her head, gagging without stop.
"Cliff... my head hurts..."
Clifford instantly pulled his hand back and scooped up the already unconscious Lindsay.
But Brendan had already lifted me first and was rushing me toward the emergency room.
"Doctor, quick, help her!"
Before the doctor could even examine me, Clifford pushed his way into the room carrying Lindsay, roaring, his eyes red.
"Doctor, see her first! She has late-stage brain cancer. Someone deliberately shoved her down, and now she's gagging and her head hurts and she's passed out!"
The doctor looked at the unconscious Lindsay and quickly took over.
But he still found a moment to call an intern to clean my wound and stop the bleeding first.
The intern took us to the room next door, and the moment she saw the gash on the back of my head, deep enough to show bone, she flinched on instinct.
"I can't handle a wound like this. I'll go get you another doctor!"
The one who came was Dr. Lambert, the same doctor who'd written up my medicine earlier.
He knew I was allergic to anesthetic, and he looked at me with some difficulty.
"I'll use acupuncture anesthesia to dull the pain, but it may still hurt a lot. Can you bear it?"
I nodded hard.
Even braced for it, when the needle and thread passed through the skin at the back of my head, the pain left my whole body trembling.
Dr. Lambert couldn't work, so he had Brendan hold me tight.
By the time the twenty-four stitches were done, my face had no color left in it from the pain.
Dr. Lambert told Brendan, "Take good care of your wife. Don't let her step out the door and come back hurt again!"
Clifford walked in just in time to hear that.
The worry on his face vanished in an instant.
His expression black, he strode over and yanked hard at me, trying to pull me out of Brendan's arms.
But no matter how he pulled, I wouldn't budge.
Watching me cling to Brendan with everything I had, he felt a fire scorching in his chest.
"Ada, your father isn't even cold in the ground, and you've got time to throw yourself at another man? What do you take me for?!"
"Or is this your way of goading me into going back and performing the rites at your father's funeral?"
