“Leave it alone, Jane.” I was so good at keeping my feelings at bay. I was so good at not getting emotionally involved, but she was pushing me, testing me. I wished she would stop, because when the feelings unleashed from the darkness of my soul, it wasn’t sadness or misery that came shooting out.
It was anger.
Anger was creeping up, and she was mentally slamming a sledgehammer against me.
She was forcing me to turn back into the monster she hadn’t known she lay beside each night.
“Come on, Graham. Tell me about your childhood. What about your mom? You had to have one of those, right? What happened to her?”
“Stop,” I said, shutting my eyes tight, my hands forming fists, but she wouldn’t let it go.
“Did she not love you enough? Did she cheat on your father? Did she die?”
I walked out of the room, because I felt it climbing to the surface. I felt my anger getting too big, too much, too overbearing. I tried my best to escape from her, but she followed me through the house.
“Okay, you don’t want to talk about your mom. How about we talk about your dad? Tell me why you despise your father so much. What did he do? Did it bother you that he was busy working all the time?”
“You don’t want to do this,” I warned once more, but she was too far gone. She wanted to play nasty, but she was playing with the wrong person.
“Did he take away your favorite toy? Did he not let you get a pet as a child? Did he forget your birthday?”
My eyes grew heavy, and she noticed it as my stare met hers. “Oh,” she whispered. “He missed a lot of birthdays.”
“I kissed her!” I finally snapped, turning to face my wife, whose jaw was hanging open. “Is that what you want? Is that the lie you want me to tell?!” I hissed. “I swear you’re acting like an idiot.”
She slammed her hands against me.
Hard.
Each time she hit me, another emotion started coming to the surface. Each time she slammed, a feeling hit my gut.
This time, it was regret.
“I’m sorry,” I said on an exhale. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t kiss her?” she asked as her voice shook.
“Of course not.”
“It’s been a long day and—ow,” she whispered as she bent over in pain. “Ouch!”
“What is it?” When my eyes met hers, my chest caved in. Her hands clutched her stomach, and her legs were soaking wet and shaking as she stood in my stretched-out T-shirt. “Jane?” I whispered, nervous and confused. “What just happened?”
“I think my water broke.”
4
Graham
“It’s too early, it’s too early, it’s too early,” Jane kept whispering to herself as I drove her to the hospital. Her hands rested on her stomach as the contractions kept coming.
“You’re fine, everything’s okay,” I reassured her out loud, but in my mind, I was terrified. It’s too early, it’s too early, it’s too early…
Once we made it to the hospital, we were rushed into a room where we were surrounded by nurses and doctors asking questions as they tried to figure out what had happened. Whenever I asked a question, they’d smile and tell me I’d have to wait to speak with the attending neonatologist. Time passed slowly, and each minute felt like an hour. I knew it was too early for the child—she was only at thirty-one weeks. When the neonatologist finally made his way to our room, he had Jane’s chart in his grip and a small smile on his face as he pulled up a chair to the side of her bed.
“Hey there, I’m Doctor Lawrence, and I’ll be the one you get sick of soon enough.” He started flipping through his folder and brushed one of his hands against his hairy chin. “It looks to me like your baby’s giving you quite the fight right now, Jane. Being that it’s still so early in the pregnancy, we are concerned about the safety of performing a delivery with there still being a good twelve weeks left until you’re due.”
“Nine,” I corrected. “There are only nine weeks left.”
Dr. Lawrence’s bushy eyebrows lowered as he went flipping through his paperwork. “No, definitely twelve, which brings about some pretty complex issues. I know you’ve probably been going over all of these questions with the nurses already, but it’s important to know what’s going on with you and the child. So first, have you been under any kind of stress lately?”
“I’m a lawyer, so that’s the definition of my life,” she replied.
“Any kind of alcohol or drugs?”
“No and no.”
“Smoking?”
She hesitated.
I raised an eyebrow. “Come on, Jane. Seriously?”
“It’s only been a few times a week,” she argued, stunning me. She turned to the doctor and tried to explain. “I’ve been under a lot of stress at work. When I found out I was pregnant, I tried to quit, but a few cigarettes a day was better than my half a pack.”
“You told me you quit,” I said through gritted teeth.
“I tried.”
“That’s not the same as quitting!”
“You don’t get to yell at me!” she bellowed, shaking. “I made a mistake, I’m in a lot of pain, and you yelling at me isn’t going to help anything. Jesus, Graham, sometimes I wish you could be more kind like your father.”
I felt her words deep in my soul, but I did my best not to react.
Dr. Lawrence grimaced before finding that small smile again. “Okay, smoking can lead to many different complications when it comes to childbirth, and although it’s impossible to know the exact cause of it, it’s good that we have this information. Seeing as how you’re so early and are having contractions, we are going to give you tocolytic medicines to try to stop the premature labor. The baby still has a lot of growing to do, so we’ll have to do our best to keep her inside for a bit more. We’ll keep you here and monitored for the next forty-eight hours.”
“Forty-eight hours? But what about my job…”
“I’ll write you a very good doctor’s note.” Dr. Lawrence winked and stood up to leave. “The nurses will be back in a second to check on you and start the medicine.”
As he left, I stood quickly and followed him out of the room. “Dr. Lawrence.”
He turned back to me and stepped my way. “Yes?”
I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes. “We got into a fight, right before her water broke. I yelled and…” I paused and ran a hand through my hair before crossing my arms once more. “I just wanted to know if that was the cause…did I do this?”
Dr. Lawrence smiled out of the left side of his mouth and shook his head. “These things happen. There’s no way to know the cause, and beating yourself up isn’t going to do anyone any good. All we can do right now is live in the moment and make sure to do what’s best for your wife and child.”
I nodded and thanked him.
I tried my best to believe his words, but in the back of my mind, I felt as if it was all my fault.
After forty-eight hours and the baby’s blood pressure dropping, the doctors informed us that we had no other choice but to deliver the baby via C-section. It was all a blur once it happened, and my heart was lodged in my throat the whole time. I stood in the operating room, uncertain of what to feel once the baby was delivered.
When the doctors finished with the C-section and the umbilical cord was cut, everyone hurried around, shouting at one another.
She wasn’t crying.
Why wasn’t she crying?
“Two pounds, three ounces,” a nurse stated.
“We’re gonna need CPAP,” another one said.
“CPAP?” I asked as they hurried past me.
“Continuous positive airway pressure, to help her breathe.”
“She’s not breathing?” I asked another.
“She is, it’s just very weak. We’re going to transfer her to the NICU, and we’ll have someone contact you once she’s stable.”
Before I could ask anything else, they were rushing the child aw
ay.
A few people stayed to take care of Jane, and once she was moved to a hospital room, she spent a few hours resting. When she finally awoke, the doctor filled us in on the health of our daughter. They told us of her struggles, of how they were doing their best to care for her in the NICU, and how her life was still at risk.
“If anything happens to her, know that it was your fault,” Jane told me once the doctor left the room. She turned her head away from me, toward the windows. “If she dies, it isn’t my fault. It’s yours.”
“I understand what you’re saying, Mr. White, but—” Jane stood in the NICU with her back to me as she spoke on her cell phone. “I know, sir, I completely understand. It’s just, my child’s been in the NICU, and…” She paused, shifted her feet around, and nodded. “Okay. I understand. Thank you, Mr. White.”
She hung up the phone and shook her head back and forth, wiping at her eyes before she turned back toward me.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
“Just work stuff.”
I just nodded once.
We stood still, staring down at our daughter, who was struggling with her breathing.
“I can’t do this,” Jane whispered, her body starting to shake. “I can’t just stay here doing nothing. I feel so useless.”
The night before, we thought we’d lost our little girl, and in that moment, I felt everything inside me begin to fall apart. Jane wasn’t handling it well at all, and she hadn’t gotten a minute of sleep.
“It’s fine,” I said, but I didn’t believe it.
She shook her head. “I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t sign up for any of this. I never wanted kids. I just wanted to be a lawyer. I had everything I wanted. And now…” Jane kept fidgeting. “She’s going to die, Graham,” she whispered, her arms crossed. “Her heart isn’t strong enough. Her lungs aren’t developed. She’s hardly even here. She’s only existing because of all of this”—she waved at the machines attached to our daughter’s tiny body—“this crap, and we’re just supposed to sit here and watch her die?! It’s cruel.”
I didn’t reply.
“I can’t do this. It’s been almost two months in this place, Graham. Isn’t she supposed to start getting better?”
Her words annoyed me, and her belief that our daughter was already too far gone sickened me. “Maybe you should just go home and shower,” I offered. “Take a break. Maybe go to work to help clear your mind.”
She shifted in her shoes and grimaced. “Yeah, you’re right. I have a lot to catch up on at work. I’ll be back in a few hours, okay? Then we can switch, and you can take a break to shower.”
I nodded.
She walked over to our daughter and looked down at her. “I haven’t told anyone her name yet. It seems silly, right? To tell people her name when she’s going to die.”
“Don’t say that,” I snapped at her. “There’s still hope.”
“Hope?” Jane’s eyes filled with confusion. “Since when are you a hopeful man?”
I didn’t have an answer, because she was right. I didn’t believe in signs, or hope, or anything of that nature. I hadn’t known God’s name until the day my daughter was born, and I felt too foolish to even offer him a prayer.
I was a realist.
I believed in what I saw, not what I hoped might be, but still, there was a part of me that looked at that small figure and wished I knew how to pray.
It was a selfish need, but I needed my daughter to be okay. I needed her to pull through, because I wasn’t certain I’d make it through losing her. The moment she was born, my chest ached. My heart somewhat awakened after years of being asleep, and when it awakened it felt nothing but pain. Pain of knowing my daughter could die. Pain of not knowing how many days, hours, or minutes were left with her. Therefore, I needed her to survive so the aching of my soul would disappear.
It was much easier to exist when it was shut off.
How had she done that? How had she turned it back on merely by being born?
I hadn’t even spoken her name…
What kind of monsters were we?
“Just go, Jane,” I said, my voice cold. “I’ll stay here.”
She left without another word, and I sat in the chair beside our daughter, whose name I, too, was too nervous to speak out loud.
I waited hours before trying to call Jane. I knew at times she’d get so wrapped up in her work, she’d forget to step away from her office, the same way I did when I was wrapped in my writing.
There wasn’t an answer on her cell phone. I called again for the next five hours with no reply, so I went ahead and called her office’s front desk. When I spoke to Heather, the receptionist, I felt gutted.
“Hi, Mr. Russell. I’m sorry, but, um…she was actually let go earlier this morning. She’s missed so much, and Mr. White let her go…I figured you would know.” Her voice lowered. “How is everything going? With the baby?”
I hung up.
Confused.
Angered.
Tired.
I tried Jane’s cell phone again, and it went straight to voicemail.
“Do you need a break?” one of the nurses asked me, coming to check on my daughter’s feeding tube. “You look exhausted. You can go home and rest for a bit. We’ll call you if—”
“I’m fine,” I said, cutting her off.
She started to speak again, but my stern look made her shut her lips. She finished up checking all the stats, and then she gave me a small smile on her way out.
I sat with my daughter, listening to the beeping machines working, waiting for my wife to come back to us. As hours went by, I allowed myself to go home for a shower and to grab my laptop so I could write at the hospital.
I made it quick, jumping into the steaming water, letting it hit me and burn my skin. Then I got dressed and hurried to my office to grab my computer and some paperwork. That was when I noticed it—the folded piece of paper sitting on my keyboard.
Graham,
I should’ve stopped reading there. I knew nothing good could come from her next words. I knew nothing good ever came from an unexpected letter written in black ink.
I can’t do this. I can’t stay and watch her die. I lost my job today, the thing I worked hardest for, and I feel as if I lost a part of my heart. I can’t sit and watch another part of me fade away, too. It’s all too much. I’m sorry. -Jane
I stared at the paper, rereading her words multiple times before folding the paper and placing it in my back pocket.
I felt her words deep in my soul, but I did my best not to react.
5
Lucy
“I completely blanked,” the stranger told me, his voice shaky. “I mean, we were both swamped with exams, and I’m just trying to keep my head above water, and I totally forgot about our anniversary. It was a given that she hadn’t when she showed up with my gifts and dressed for the dinner date I forgot to book.”
I gave the guy a smile and nodded as he told me the full saga of why his girlfriend was currently pissed off at him.
“And it doesn’t help that I missed her birthday too, seeing as how I’d just gotten rejected from med school the week before. That put me in a big funk, but, man. Okay, yeah, sorry—I’ll just get these flowers.”
“Will that be all?” I asked, ringing up the dozen red roses the guy had picked out as an attempt to apologize to his girlfriend for forgetting the only two dates he really had to remember.
“Yeah, do you think it’s enough?” he asked nervously. “I just really messed up, and I’m not sure how to even start apologizing.”
“Flowers are a good start,” I told him. “And words help, too. Then, I think your actions will speak the loudest.”
He thanked me as he paid and walked out of the shop.
“I give them two weeks before they break up,” Mari said with a smirk on her lips as she trimmed a few tulips.
“Ms. Optimist.” I laughed. “He’s trying.”
“He’s asking
a stranger for advice on his relationship. He’s failing,” she replied, shaking her head. “I just don’t get it. Why do guys find the need to apologize after they screw up? If they could just not screw up, there wouldn’t be anything to apologize for. It’s not that hard to just…be good.”
I gave her a tight smile, watching her cut the flower stems aggressively while her eyes filled with emotion. She wouldn’t admit to the fact that she was currently taking her pain out on the beautiful plants, but it was clear that she was.
“Are you…okay?” I asked as she picked up a handful of daisies and shoved them into the vase.
“I’m fine. I just don’t understand how that guy could be so insensitive, you know? Why in the world would he ask you for advice?!”
“Mari.”
“What?”
“Your nose is flaring and you’re waving scissors around like a madwoman because a guy bought his girlfriend flowers for forgetting their anniversary. Are you really upset about that or does it have something to do with today’s date? Seeing as how it would’ve been your—”
“Seven-year anniversary?” She chopped up two roses into tiny pieces. “Oh? Is that today? I hardly noticed.”
“Mari, back away from the scissors.”
She looked up at me, and then down at the roses. “Oh no, am I having one of those mental breakdown moments?” she asked as I walked over and slowly removed the scissors from her grip.
“No, you’re having one of those human moments. It’s fine, really. You’re allowed to be angry and sad for as long as you need to. Remember? Maktub. It just becomes an issue when we start destroying our own things over asshole men, especially flowers.”
“Ugh, you’re right, I’m sorry.” She groaned, placing her head in the palms of her hands. “Why do I still care? It’s been years.”
“Time doesn’t just shut off your feelings, Mari. It’s fine, but it’s also fine that I booked you and me a date for tonight.”
“Seriously?”
I nodded. “It involves margaritas and tacos.”
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