The Waiting Room

The wrinkled lines of her face still held a shine of the beauty that sent him to his knees so long ago. The swollen, rheumy joints, the lined, glassed-adorned eyes; he saw only his beautiful bride, and 52 years of compassion, compromise, and comfort.
She sat on an extra wide seat, scooting to the right and patting the left, indicating he should sit. He needed to sit. Truly only one large man, or two small women could fit comfortably upon the ripped pleather, nonetheless Richard eased himself into the seat. His old bones creaked like the material of the chair as he squeezed into Marilyn, indulging in the ancient comfort of her scent: lavender fields of hair, lemon grove of skin. Not a moment later, the nurse arrived, pushing a vacant wheelchair.
“Mr. Cass? Ready for your CT scan?”
Surely the wheelchair was overkill, he may have fallen, but he could still walk. No need to humiliate him further than the colossal bandage covering the northwest quadrant of his face.
He and Marilyn rose, but the nurse insisted Richard would be back momentarily, no need for her to join him.
Indignantly, he sat in the wheelchair. The nurse, not even a quarter his age, began to push him down the hall that reeked of infirmity and generic cleaning supplies.
He turned to look at Marilyn, still standing, still staring in his direction. Still dreading to be apart from him after all these years. With his exposed eye, he attempted a wink and smile. But with the heinous bandage covering his right eye, it looked more like a painful grimace.

Author's Note:
I recently found myself in the waiting room of the E.R. Instead of succumbing to boredom entirely, I wrote some short stories about the people and things I encountered while waiting. This is one of those stories.