"It's for you" she said, handing me the white envelope, with the three blue letters in the corner. N. H. S.
I stood there, looking at the paper in my hand. My name in the window. This address. She was right, it was for me. She knew what that meant too. "Sorry. Or not sorry, more ..." She wasn't sure what it was more of.
But I knew what she meant, so I gave the shortest of nods, and let her take me by the hand through to the sofa. Sat me down, asked if I wanted something to drink. The shake of my head was as curt as the nod had been. Minimalist communication. Minimising the outlets for the fear that was squeezing it's way out of the dormant recesses of my body and coming to the surface in wave after wave. I saw the envelope was shaking.
She got me a glass of water anyway. "Here, have a few sips of this, then we can open it together." Sat beside me. Close. Close enough to put her arms round me if arms were needed.
I sipped. I shook. I wished I were elsewhere, in another time. But it was now, it was here, this was happening. "Do you want me to open it for you?"
I looked at her like she'd suggested we open a bar on the Moon. Was this a possibility? Didn't I have to do it? Were there rules? And if she did, what then? The words on the page inside would remain the same, the meaning they conveyed would be just as it would be if I opened it myself, the rest of my life would be mapped out because it already was.
"No. I have to. Do it. Myself. Thanks. No." The words came out, disjointed, like I had only learned language in recent weeks. It was her turn to nod.
"I'll get the letter opener" and she was off again, and back, and her speed took my breath away. While I had gone into slow motion, a film at the wrong speed, a buffering screen, a semi animate being. Gently she removed the envelope from my hand, deftly sliced apart the seal, gently placed it back in my fingers. Waited. Waited.
I looked into her eyes, read the concern, for me, and for her ability to find the right words, Whatever they might be. "They haven't phoned. So it's almost certainly good news. If it was bad they'd have called us in." An 'us' had never meant so much to me before. I tried to grasp her positivity, seize it to myself, let it oil my movements, drive my fingers into doing what they had to do.
The single A4 sheet came out easily. Unfolded effortlessly. But did not render up it's meaning so readily. Not to me. I saw the print. I saw some letters. They refused to join up into words and sentences, so I stared at the black on white, willing it to soak into my mind.
She beat me to it. The hug enveloped my arms and body and moved the paper from my line of sight. So I tried to read the hug instead. It felt like a happy hug. Was it a happy hug? My cheek was damp from her tears. She moved back a few inches. Teeth showed. In a smile. A big smile. Eyes shining with moisture. A happy smile, happy eyes. A happy hug. "Oh Joe, that's wonderful." And the hug returned, stronger, happier even.
"It's clear?"
She pushed back, hands on my shoulders, the smile puzzled now.
"You didn't read it?"
"Couldn't."
"Let me. Read it to you." She took the fateful sheet, wiped her tears away, read out the fateful words, repeating those few key syllables. Grinned.
"Say it again." She did. And this time my brain cooperated. Formed the sounds into words into meaning. Told me what I wanted to hear and not what I'd dreaded. I was in the clear. It was over. Life was back on. Happy hugs on both sides.
