The One That Got Away by Leigh Himes Read Free Book Online

nurse’s call button forty times, they plopped back down with double slaps of leather-soled shoes, eager to inspect the room’s bounty of balloons. Their clothes were neat, their faces jelly-free, and their voices low. Even Sam’s cowlick was behaving.
    Alex looked relieved. “So you remember them?” he asked quietly. “How about me?”
    I knew that I would never get out of there and find out what was really going on if I kept on about Jimmy. “Of course,” I told him with a smile. “You’re my husband, these are our kids, and I hadsome sort of an accident. But I feel fine now.” I gave him a little jazz-hands maneuver for emphasis.
    “Are you sure? Yesterday you insisted you were married to someone named Jimmy.”
    “I did? That’s funny,” I said, trying to act natural. Then I put my hand over my mouth as if to whisper and added, “They must have way overserved me.” He didn’t laugh, just continued to stare, so I told him again, “I promise you I feel fine.” And I wasn’t lying about this; I really did feel pretty good.
    I looked up and around the room, then back at him. “Can we get out of here?”
    Finally he smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back. I had no idea how this happened, or what was going on. But I also knew that I wasn’t going to figure things out from the confines of this hospital room. Or on lockdown in a mental ward.
    I needed to be there for my kids, who obviously had no problem with the new me or the new Daddy. I also figured that if this was a dream or an out-of-body experience or temporary insanity, I might as well enjoy it. And him.
    Since I had no dizziness, nausea, or double vision, and since there was no swelling or bleeding detected by the CAT scan that Alex had insisted upon, the hospital had to let me go. I signed oceans of paperwork with a smile, promised to be more careful, and, following hospital protocol, even relented and used a wheelchair. After a ride across town in a huge black Suburban with tinted windows and a quick trip up a wood-paneled elevator, I found myself rolling along the top floor of an ornate mid-rise condo on Philadelphia’s exclusive Rittenhouse Square. Because I was being pushed by a tallblack man named Oscar, whose warm smile and joking attitude clashed with his secret service–style suit and sunglasses, and whom the kids knew well enough to call “Big O,” no one could tell I didn’t know which door was mine. But then again, on this entire floor, there were only two to choose from.
    Alex let Gloria and her jumble of balloons walk ahead, while Sam rolled along with me, perched proudly on my lap. It seemed like an excruciatingly long roll, but eventually we made it to the door marked with a cursive “Twelve,” which Alex pushed open without a key. On the other side was a living room the size of a Banana Republic.
    Two lacquered consoles lined the short entryway that led to an open-plan living and dining area decorated in various shades of cream and white. In the center, wide beige velvet couches flanked a low glass-and-metal table perched on a soft white carpet. On one wall, a built-in bookshelf housed decorative bowls, gold Buddha heads, and oversized books, and to the right, a long polished-wood dining table gleamed under the largest drum shade I’d ever seen. The walls were filled with large canvases of modern paintings, some with just a few smears of color, some antique-looking mirrors, and, in the dining room, a massive black-and-white photograph of sheep. It was the kind of effortlessly elegant look that only the very rich could pull off.
    I lifted Sam off my lap and stood shakily. I began to walk around the room as if in a trance. I ran my fingers down the glossy dining table and felt the soft cashmere throw on the sofa. I breathed in the faintly lemony smell of all-natural cleaner mixed with orchids in full bloom. Moving to the windows, I pushed aside the filmy sheer curtains and looked down at the tops of the trees, their