by Rhonda Bowen
“C-section?” JJ’s head was spinning. “She was fine when I left her this morning, she just had a checkup last week. How can this be happening?”
“These things can turn quickly.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “I know it’s a lot to take in and it’s tough to make a decision like this so quickly, but you are the only one of her two emergency contacts whom we could reach. She’s been out for a while and she may not be awake and lucid in time to decide for herself. You have to make the decision on the surgery.”
“But how can she handle a C-section now if she’s losing so much blood?” JJ protested. “Plus she’s not even seven months pregnant. What about the baby’s chances of survival?”
She saw the doctor exchange a look with Janice
“There is some risk, but if the placenta has separated completely, then the chances for the baby’s survival more than double with surgery. We will take all the precautions necessary and have blood units available.”
“No,” JJ said, shaking her head. “There must be some other option.”
“Ms. Isaacs, I know the surgery sounds frightening but—”
“Where is Dr. Massri?” JJ asked. For what felt like the hundredth time in the past week and a half, she was very glad that he had decided to stay.
The doctor and Janice exchanged another look.
“JJ,” Janice began, touching her arm. “Dr. Brighton is very qualified . . .”
“Do we need to decide now?” JJ asked.
The doctor placed his hands on his hips. “We need to make a decision today about what will happen, but, no, we can keep her stable for a while.”
“Then you keep her stable and you find me Dr. Massri,” JJ demanded, fixing her gaze on Janice. “He’s the one who’s been taking care of her. He’s the one I want to talk to.”
The nurse sighed. “He’s off duty today but—”
“Please,” JJ said, pleading with her eyes.
“Okay, okay, I’ll see if we can track him down,” Janice said, holding up her palms as she backed away and hurried down the hallway.
JJ looked at the doctor, who was fully prepped for surgery, and ignored the annoyed expression on his face.
“Can I see her?”
He shook his head and let out a grunt. “We’ll move her out of the OR into a room, get her stabilized, and then bring you to her.”
JJ nodded. “I’ll be waiting.”
Fifteen minutes later, another nurse came and led JJ to Sheree’s room. As the doctor had mentioned, Sheree was unconscious. Tubes and wires crisscrossed her body and connected to a drip, and various machines surrounded her bed. Pulling the lone chair in the room up to the bedside, JJ sat down and sighed.
“Boy, you sure don’t do anything the easy way, do you?” she said to her sister-in-law as she leaned back in the chair.
“Well, you know me,” a weak voice responded. “Go big or go home.”
JJ sprang from her chair. “Sheree! You’re awake!”
Sheree slowly turned her head toward JJ and offered a weak smile. “Yeah, guess I am.”
“Oh, thank God,” JJ said, sinking onto the side of the bed. “I’ve been going out of my mind with worry since they called me and told me an ambulance took you to the hospital. How are you feeling?”
“Sore, weak, and ready. Feels like this baby is about to pop out.” She winced as she tried to pull herself up.
“Hey, take it easy,” JJ said, putting an arm on Sheree’s to still her movements. “Let me call a nurse.”
“No,” Sheree said, grabbing JJ’s arm before she could reach the call button. “Just help me lift this bed . . .”
“I don’t know if you should be sitting up,” JJ said, surveying Sheree and the cords snaking from her arms, chest, and belly. “They almost sent you into surgery. Just relax, okay? Simon will be here in a minute.”
Sheree sighed. “Fine.” She leaned back, giving up her pursuit of the button to adjust the bed. “But only if you entertain me by telling me how you went from Dr. Massri to Simon.”
Even in her weakened state she managed to smirk at JJ.
“He’s still Dr. Massri,” JJ corrected. “And we’ve just been coordinating about your care, which we will apparently be doing a lot now that you made me an emergency contact without telling me.”
Sheree waved JJ’s stern look away. “Ain’t nobody talking about that. Has he asked you out yet?”
“What?” JJ protested. “Of course not.”
Their little adventure out of town was not a date. And she had barely had contact with him since.
“Well, don’t slouch, honey. You can ask him out too,” Sheree countered.
JJ laughed. “First of all, I do not do that. Secondly, Dr. Massri is not interested in me.”
“JJ, please. I have seen the way that man looks at you. He is definitely interested.”
“It’s not what you think,” JJ said. She paused, considering whether she should mention her past connection to Simon. She hadn’t even told her sisters yet that he was the man she had met in Paris. It would just complicate things way too much, and she didn’t need that right now.
“Okay, spit it out then.”
“Sheree, you should be focused on your health right now, not on some imagined thing you think is going on between me and your OB,” JJ said, fussing with Sheree’s covers.
“JJ, I’m lying in a hospital bed, bleeding on and off, not sure if I am going to be able to carry my child to term. The doctors could walk in here right now and say that I need to have a C-section. Just thinking about the risks to my child, being born two months premature, is enough to get my heart rate up.”
JJ looked up when she caught the serious tone in Sheree’s voice.
“So if I make up something between you and Dr. Massri, it’s only to distract myself from the less appealing reality of this situation,” Sheree said. “And can you really blame me?”
JJ sat down on the chair beside Sheree’s bed and closed her eyes. “You’re not making it up.”
“Spill! Immediately!”
“Only if you calm down,” JJ said quickly and sternly. “If I hear that heart monitor speed up or you get overexcited . . .”
“Okay, okay, I promise,” Sheree said with a sigh, but her eyes sparkled in anticipation.
JJ sighed also. “And you cannot breathe a word of this to anyone here, especially not around Simon.”
“Quit stalling,” Sheree hissed. “By the time you get started, he’ll be back.”
“Okay, fine.” JJ glanced over at the door before she started. “My last year of college, five years ago, I did a study-abroad program in Paris. It was like a French immersion thing, learn the language and learn about clothing, textile, and design in one of the fashion capitals of the world—”
“Yeah, yeah, go on.”
“Can you not rush me?”
“Well, you’re taking forever.”
“It’s my story!”
“Okay, sorry,” Sheree said. “No more interruptions.”
“So anyway, I spent the year in Paris and it was great. I had a couple weeks between when classes ended and when I planned to leave, so I decided to go traveling outside Paris with some friends. The day before our departure, I sent my luggage ahead to the airport and spent the night in a hotel in Paris, planning to go to the airport the next day.”
JJ sighed as the memories of that day began to come back to her. “I remember I was rushing that morning because I was running late. I didn’t even notice him in the elevator. I just remember the sound when it stopped. It was this horrible grinding sound like metal against metal, then the lights blinked and we stopped moving. I remember I pressed every button. Nothing happened. He tried to get a signal on his phone, but there was no signal in the elevator. We tried the elevator phone; it didn’t work. The only thing that worked was the little button that you are supposed to press when there’s a problem—you know, the one that sets everything ringing but doesn’t actually do anything? Yeah, that one.�
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JJ took a deep breath. “That’s when I started to panic. I hate elevators, Sheree. Always have. It’s just something about that small space that I can’t deal with, and in Paris—” She shook her head. “Paris elevators are barely bigger than upright coffins.”
“So what happened?”
“It felt like I was having a heart attack. My chest started tightening, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe. I was in the corner like a baby. I felt like I was going to die. And then . . . he saved me.”
“He, who?”
JJ looked at Sheree knowingly. When she woman’s eyes widened, she knew she got it.
“Simon?”
JJ nodded. “He calmed me down, got me breathing, got me through the whole thing. He was the man in the elevator, who I never noticed until I needed him.” She bit her lip. “I don’t even remember everything he did. But I do remember that he prayed for me. It was crazy. This man, who I had just met moments earlier, prayed over me like I was the most important thing in his life.” JJ shook her head. “I can’t even describe what it was like. I just know I felt. . . safe. I’ve never felt like that with a stranger ever before in my life.”
“And then what?”
JJ sighed as if reliving the experience all over. “It was like a weight lifted off me. Like I forgot why I was so panicked in the first place. And then he kept me distracted, talking to me about almost everything. We talked about faith, life, what he was doing in Paris, what I was doing in Paris. We were there for hours, and at the end I felt like . . . like I knew him.”
“So what happened when you got out? Did you go for coffee? Dinner? Anything?”
JJ shook her head. “No. There was so much chaos when they finally got us out. Everybody was outside waiting. The fire department, the police, the ambulance, lots of hotel personnel, even a news team. We got separated in the fray. The hotel staff felt so bad, they covered my charges and got me a car for the airport. I missed my original flight but managed to get a red-eye out.” JJ shrugged. “It was my last day in Paris. I never saw him again.”
“Until now.”
JJ sighed. “Yes, until now. There, are you happy now? You have all of it.”
Sheree stared at her. “You know what this means, right?”
JJ pursed her lips at Sheree. “And what would that be?”
“That the two of you were obviously meant to find each other!” Sheree said. “You have to explore this, see where it goes. This is fate!”
JJ got up and stretched. “Sheree, stop.”
“This man saved your life! How sexy is that? And I know you like him, JJ. You get this wide-eyed, doe-in-the-headlights look every time he walks into the room. You hang on his every word—”
“I do not!”
“I thought it was a bit wonky at first, but now I know why.”
“Whatever,” JJ said with a laugh. “You’re a bit wonky. I can’t believe a hard-core girl like you could be such a romantic.”
“Hey, ghetto girls can have a soft side too!”
They were both laughing when the door opened. However, the pensive look on Simon’s face when he walked in cut it short. JJ’s eyes roamed over him involuntarily. He looked dishevelled, his hair barely tied back, his skin bronzed as if he had spent most of the morning outdoors. He wasn’t even wearing a white jacket or scrubs, just some track pants and a white T-shirt, which he somehow managed to make look amazing.
“Ladies,” he said, stepping into the room. “Tell me what happened.”
“She came in a couple hours ago with bleeding,” JJ said. “The doctors called and told me to get over here immediately.”
“They want me to have a C-section,” Sheree said, her voice unsteady. “But I’m only seven months. My baby’s not ready.”
She tried to look brave, but Sheree was doing a terrible job of disguising the depth of her worry, and JJ could see it.
“You have lost a lot of blood, which can be dangerous for both you and the baby,” Simon said, getting straight to the heart of the matter. “We’re going to start you on a transfusion to bring you back up to safe levels. But I am worried that we may not be able to manage this on an outpatient basis anymore.”
“What do you mean?” JJ asked, confused.
“I mean that if there is another incident like this, where Sheree and the baby are in distress, we will have to perform a C-section if we want to save them both.” He sighed. “I’m going to have to put you on complete bed rest and have you admitted here so we can closely observe you. Dr. Brighton was not wrong in suggesting a C-section. Most doctors would already have you in the OR. But I want to see that baby develop as much as possible before we bring him or her into the world.”
His brows knotted as he considered the two women. “Can I get you both to agree to this?”
JJ looked over at Sheree, who sighed tiredly before nodding. “Whatever it takes to bring my baby safely into this world.”
Simon’s face relaxed for the first time since he had stepped into the room. “That’s good to hear,” he said.
Sheree nodded, but JJ wasn’t sure the woman believed what Simon was saying. She was wringing the bed sheets tightly, a look of worry all over her face. Simon seemed to notice it also, because he put down his charts and came to sit on the edge of Sheree’s bed.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he said gently, squeezing her hand. “We had a bit of a scare this morning, but we are monitoring you and the baby and you are both doing okay. Not as well as we’d like, but okay. I suspect that once we get that transfusion going, things will start to improve. Furthermore, having you here means that we can catch anything going wrong as soon as it happens. This is a good thing for you and the baby.”
Sheree nodded. “I know, I know. I just . . .” She trailed off, and JJ felt the pressure on her hand as Sheree squeezed.
“It’s okay,” JJ said. “I’m here. And I’ll be here through all of it. All of us are going to come through this. I promise.”
JJ knew she shouldn’t make promises she couldn’t keep, but she wanted Sheree to know she was not alone. No matter what happened, someone would be there with her.
“They’re going to come by and put in the IV anytime now,” Simon said. “But I need you to rest, give your body time to rebuild its strength.”
Sheree nodded and settled back in the bed, seemingly a bit more relieved.
“I’m gonna go make arrangements for your being admitted,” JJ said. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
JJ followed Simon outside. Once the door to Sheree’s room closed and they were a few feet away, she grabbed his arm.
“How is she really?” she asked, concern gripping her heart in a vise.
“Supremely blessed,” Simon said with a shake of his head. “I don’t even know how she is still alert and focused with her red cell count that low. Do you know if she has been taking on too much at home?”
“She’s been mostly resting,” JJ said. “But God alone knows what she does when we’re not there. She’s not used to depending on others, you know?” She bit her lip. “I’m actually a little relieved that she’s being admitted. I’m afraid of what might happen in the next couple days when I’m not there to check up on her. My sisters try, but their lives are crazy. Plus none of us has ever had kids, so we have no idea what we should be doing.”
Simon smiled. “Don’t worry. You’re doing fine.” He paused. “So you’re going away?”
“The tour starts next week, so I’ll be all over the States,” JJ said. “I should be back in time for the delivery though. I don’t want to miss that.”
He nodded as he looked down. It seemed to JJ like there was something he would say, something he wanted to say, but nothing came. He was about to turn and head off when she grabbed his arm again.
“Can you do me a favor?” she asked. When he looked at her curiously she dug into her purse and pulled out a business card. Turning it over, she wrote her cell number on the back. “Can you call me and let me know how she’s do
ing?” she asked timidly as she held out the card. “I know you’re super busy. But I don’t need long summaries. Just an update every couple of days so I know that she’s doing okay. It would mean so much . . .”
“Sure,” he said, taking the card even as his eyes pierced through her. “It’s no problem, Judith. I’ll call you.”
She didn’t know why his words sent a shiver through her. Why the thought of her cell phone ringing with Simon on the other end made butterflies swarm in her belly. This was only about Sheree, right? Nothing else. She just wanted to make sure that she kept her promise to be there for her sister-in-law, who had somehow managed to sneak into her heart.
And yet, as she stood in the hallway as he walked away, watching him tuck her card into his pocket and check to make sure it was all the way in, she couldn’t help but look forward to the first time he kept his promise to her.
Chapter 15
“Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready!”
The screams reverberated through JJ as she stood waiting behind the curtain. Her heart was beating like a drum, pumping hot, electrified blood through her veins. Her fingers slid over the smooth surface of the guitar, idly tracing her initials engraved in the body. She tingled with an exquisite blend of release and tension. This was it. Her first official night on Deacon Hill’s ten-city Satisfied tour. Their first of twenty or more live performances starting in Los Angeles and ending early September in Toronto. Was she ready? She had no idea. One thing she knew, however, was that this moment, standing on stage at the Staples Center on this hot night in the last week of July, would be burnt into her memory forever.
The curtain went up, the lights hit them full blast, and the LA crowd screamed. JJ met Kya’s eyes and they both grinned. The woman she had labeled Miss Cell Phone had become her fellow band member and second on guitar. Her attitude had come along with her for the tour, and that had already put her at odds with JJ. It made JJ all the more glad that Diana had also made the cut. Sabrina, the keyboard player at their audition, was fairly supportive and gave good leadership to the band when she wasn’t pissed off about something. But Diana was the only one JJ could consider a friend. Through the deadly rehearsal schedule, the late nights on the tour bus, and the drama that sometimes went down behind the scenes, JJ knew she could count on Diana to be genuine. It didn’t change the way she related to the others, however. At the end of the day, they were members of Deacon Hill’s female band She-La and they were all in it together. If they wanted to make it through the tour, they would have to put aside their different personalities and perform as one. So far, the music had helped with that. No matter how they bickered offstage, onstage they were unified. Just like tonight.