My Wife's Secret Husband

My mother-in-law, Pauline Greer, tried to speak. "You—"

The man cut her off with a yell. "How dare you open that filthy mouth! Shut it!

"Your germs are everywhere! You've contaminated the whole hospital! Someone disinfect this area!

"Now!"

Pauline had never been spoken to that way in her entire life. Her face went scarlet with humiliation. I pulled her behind me and stared down the man in front of me.

I could not imagine how Giselle Bedford, who spent her days buried in medical journals and patient files, could possibly know someone this crude.

The nurse was not about to let him keep going. Keeping order in the ward was part of her job.

"Sir, please stop causing a scene. This is a hospital! Even a child knows to keep their voice down."

"Those rules are for people like you! Do you think you're on my level?"

The man tilted his head back and barked at the nurse, "You! Get these two filthy things out of here!"

I could tell the nurse was doing everything she could to hold her tongue. Her professionalism would not allow her to snap back at someone in the waiting area, no matter how badly he deserved it.

However, I was not bound by the same obligation, and I knew perfectly well that civility was wasted on a man like this.

"This is the gynecology department. If you're calling my mother-in-law dirty for sitting here, then doesn't that mean your wife—and you—are dirty too when she visits this department?"

Pauline turned to me in surprise. She had not expected me to say something like that, but there was no disapproval in her eyes, only admiration.

The man let out another yell and lunged at me with his fist drawn back. "You dare call me dirty?"

He did not make it. His foot slipped on the freshly mopped floor, and he went down face-first with a wet slap.

Every patient in the waiting area had been seething through his entire performance. Now, they all burst out laughing.

He scrambled to his feet, face twisted with rage, and rounded on the janitor mopping nearby. "Do you even know how to do your job? Do you want me to have Giselle fire you?"

My wife's name had come out of his mouth again, with the same brazen confidence as before, and it did not sit right with me.

I was about to walk over and ask him exactly what his connection to Giselle was when Pauline's name flashed on the screen beside the examination room.

"Mr. Shaw, go ahead. I can handle him."

I hesitated at the nurse's words, glancing back at the man, who was still hollering at anyone within earshot.

Nothing about him could be connected to the Giselle I knew. I told myself I was reading too much into it.

"Thank you."

I nodded to the nurse, took Pauline by the arm, and led her into the examination room.