by Aiden Bates
“What’s that?” I asked, tilting my head as I watched Charlie and his slightly swollen belly carrying a toolkit into the kitchen. “What are you doing?”
Charlie didn’t say anything, which I found a little strange until I noticed he was grasping a thin, short piece of metal in his mouth.
Sitting back on the stool at the counter, I waited, allowing him to do what he wanted, but I had to admit I was surprised when he began hammering something into the wall.
“There!” he said standing back to admire his handywork. He’d nailed in a brass plate, of which, the bottom half was a series of four hooks and the top half spelled the word “Keys.”
“It even says what it’s for!” Charlie said, proudly. “Now, you won’t forget where you put them.”
“And if I forget to put my keys where it says ‘Keys?’” I asked to tease him.
“Then, that’s not memory. That’s just you unable to read. I can’t help you there. The best I can do is draw pictures for you,” Charlie said with a shrug and a little smirk.
I was ready to ask him to draw me a picture of some very interesting anatomy parts, but the alarm went off on my phone. I glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was time. Charlie gave me a reassuring smile.
“We can do this, sweetheart.”
I nodded, knowing he was right. I could do this because instead of facing my MRI alone, I was facing it with Charlie.
We got ready, and then Charlie drove us to Arlington General for the second time in the month, this time for my benefit instead of Charlie’s or the nuggets’.
I was so nervous about what the results of the MRI would say that I had completely forgotten, or ignored, or just not considered the actual process of getting the MRI. The MRI technologist had warned us that some people got nervous in or around the machines, but I scoffed at Charlie when the technologist left the room.
“Nah, dude. No way. Not after the gas mask test they make you go through in training. That’s as claustrophobic as it gets, and I was fine. Marcos was going to cry, I swear…” Charlie laughed, the sweet sound exactly what I needed to hear. “But not me. I’m going to be fine.”
I…definitely wasn’t fine, but I seemed to be to everyone who didn’t know me. I told jokes badly, I awkwardly tried to flirt with the nurses, I babbled about how the machine looked and sounded like a big conveyor belt at the grocery store, and just generally tried to put off the strongest “this is fine; this is no big deal” vibe possible.
“It’s fine if you’re nervous, you know,” Charlie whispered to me as I lay flat on my back waiting to be drawn into the tube.
“Well, I’m not! This is a military secret, but we practice what to do in case you’re abducted by aliens, so this is, like, super normal for me. No big deal,” I said very emphatically. Charlie shook his head and made some kind of noise that said he didn’t believe me.
“I’m…” Fine, I was going to say. I’m fine. But that would have been a lie, and that would have been counter to what I had learned this week. “Worried. I’m worried,” I said, after the few moments it took to get the nerve up to admit it.
“I know,” Charlie said, matching me in genuineness. “Whatever it is. Whatever they tell us. We’ll be together, so it will be fine. I promise.”
And then, it really did seem like no big deal, for a few moments, at least.
However, afterward, while we waited in the waiting room, my worry came back, and continued to grow as the hours passed. Charlie played on his phone for a bit, seemed to change his mind, switched to eating a granola bar he had brought with him, changed his mind, re-wrapped and stashed the half-eaten granola bar, and then returned to his game.
“Your hands aren’t steady enough,” I declared as I snuck a peek at the game he was playing. Some kind of flight simulator that kept ending in a spectacular crash and burn as Charlie failed the same level over and over again. “Here…” I reached for his phone.
“I’m an artist, my hands are extremely steady, and part of why we’re here is because of your tremor. Leave me alone,” he said, arching himself away from my hands as he tried to continue playing despite my grasping.
As the second and third hour passed, Charlie became more interested in people watching.
“He’s upset because his alpha doesn’t want to stay around, I’ll bet you anything,” Charlie said, as we watched an alpha and an omega fight through the large glass window in the waiting room.
“No, it’s the alpha that’s more upset. I bet you they found that the baby isn’t his.”
“Aha! I can see that.” Charlie briefly looked down to type something into his phone. “Sometimes I get ideas for panel staging like this,” he explained with a shrug.
“I bet you the omega—”
“Mr. Acosta?” A nurse stood at the double doors that led into the neurology unit. “We’re ready for you now.”
Charlie and I glanced at each other, nodded, and dutifully uncurled ourselves from our chairs to follow the nurse inside.
“No,” I said, simply, eyeing the picture of the inside of my brain that Dr. Smith had clipped up on the board. “Nope. Not happening.”
“Pedro—” Charlie said, still white with fear from the news but trying his best to be polite in front of Dr. Smith. Dr. Smith didn’t work at Arlington, but being my primary care doctor he’d come up as a courtesy to tell me the news. The terrible, horrifying, life-destroying news.
“No,” I repeated with a defiant jut of my shoulder. “I’m not doing it.”
Dr. Smith sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. I knew he was going to try, once again, to talk me into something I was definitely, absolutely, one-hundred percent not going to do. There was no point in him attempting to explain the situation to me again either. I understood the situation perfectly. In fact, I probably understood it better than anyone in this room. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand what was happening, it was that I just wasn’t going to give in and do what they wanted me to do.
“Okay…” Dr. Smith said, as though he had heard me say out loud everything I had just thought. He turned away from me, seemingly deciding on a different direction. “Charlie.”
Dr. Smith pointed at the print out of the MRI scan with his pen. Specifically, he pointed to a small, fuzzy white patch in the middle of the right side of the picture. A small, fuzzy white patch in the middle of the right side of my brain, really.
“This is a focal lesion in the temporoparietal junction. It is small and concentrated right now but it was formed by the combination of a clot and a brain bleed. Now—”
“What I don’t get is how he’s bleeding and clotting,” Charlie quickly said.
“Well, likely, a small blood vessel burst releasing blood into the surrounding tissue. It doesn’t appear to be a very big bleed, but as this blood collected, it likely formed a hematoma—the clot, as it were. This isn’t uncommon but it is concerning because to put Pedro on blood thinners to undo the clot might cause another bleed. But to do nothing about the clot may allow it to continue putting pressure on the surrounding structures, making it more likely for a different rupture to occur. Seizures, memory loss, and mood swings are not atypical presentations of an intracerebral hemorrhage in this area, but it is difficult to predict what the symptoms or the prognosis of another hemorrhage might be.”
“He could have more seizures,” Charlie said tentatively as I crossed my arms and did my best not to listen or to look at anyone.
“He could,” Dr. Smith agreed. “Or, worse. Hallucinations, more mood swings, more frequent or more profound lapses. There’s no way of knowing for sure.”
At this, Dr. Smith turned to me despite how I wasn’t facing him.
“This in a patient without a history of traumatic brain injury is bad enough. But you do have a history, Pedro. And a pretty dramatic one, at that. And to put off surgery may introduce complications that are difficult to reverse if not irreversible.”
“And,” I heard Charlie say “And, you have to…”
“Yes, I understand why it seems paradoxical to you, Pedro, but the safest bet is to lower your metabolism as much as we possibly can. That decreases the risk of a bleed during the operation, and therefore, basically decreases the risk of triggering complications that don’t already exist. In essence, the best chance we have of going in and fixing the problem without also causing more problems is to—”
“No,” I said again.
“Put him in coma again,” Charlie said, finishing what Dr. Lemon had been about to say.
Dr. Smith uncrossed his arms and threw one of his palms up as if to indicate that was all there was to it. “There are risks to every operation, and anytime we’re working on something as delicate as brain tissue, the risks increase. But Arlington has a great team, and Ramirez is a good neurosurgeon. If I had to pick someone to perform neurosurgery on me, I would pick her any day of the week. That’s the best we can do, in my opinion.”
“You don’t understand. None of you understand. No,” I said, shaking my head. Charlie came forward to wrap both of his hands around mine, but I pulled mine back. I couldn’t, I just couldn’t let myself be talked into this.
“Dr. Smith is saying it’s your best shot. What if we do nothing and—”
“And what if it goes wrong? What if they put me down and they can’t bring me back? What if I lose another three years? Or more? What if I wake up and the twins are in middle school or… What if I never wake up again?”
“Oh, no. Pedro,” Dr. Smith said, wrinkling his brow. “It won’t be years. Once the drugs wear off, you should—”
“I should, I probably will, I might. But I won’t. I can’t. Not with these hypotheticals. This is my life. This is my time. I’ve already lost so much time. I’ve already had to start over once. I can’t—” I shook my head again, and then furiously wiped at my face with the collar of the hospital gown to bring back myself back from the verge of tears.
“Yes,” Charlie said, taking my hands in his despite my efforts to gently bat him away. “Yes, you’re right. Dr. Smith seems to be fully acknowledging that there are no guarantees. But, Pedro?” Charlie’s eyes melted into a softness that was usually reserved for our apartment or our bed. “When in life are there ever guarantees? We don’t know what’s going to happen if you agree to this, we don’t know what’s going to happen if you don’t.”
“I know,” I miserably admitted, choking back a sob.
“The only thing we know for certain is that whatever you decide to do, I will be here for you. Through all of it. I can’t promise what it’ll be like, but I can promise you won’t be alone. I love you, and I promise I’ll be here, whether you go through with this or not, whether you come back tomorrow or in ten years. I will be here. I just want to give you the best shot at being here, with me, with our babies.”
Dr. Smith blinked, apparently amazed at Charlie’s argument. I blinked too, suddenly completely convinced of the right thing to do even as I was equally convinced I would hate it every step of the way. But I didn’t have a choice. Not really. To do nothing would leave Charlie in the same situation I had feared putting him in. To do nothing would mean Charlie would spend the rest of his life wondering when this bleed would clot and kill me. And how could I, how could anyone, ask Charlie to face the possibility of losing someone he was building a life with again?
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I was going to have to be brave.
“When?” I asked Dr. Smith, who was avoiding looking at Charlie and at me in order to give us some privacy.
“As soon as you’re ready, I would say,” Dr. Smith said.
I looked at Charlie who shook his head. No, of course we’re not ready. Who would ever be ready? But that was sort of Charlie’s point, right? Babies, death, life, love. They were all the kinds of things that happened whether you were ready or not.
“Are you ready, Pedro?” Dr. Smith asked.
“No,” I answered, truthfully. “No, I’m not ready, and I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. But let’s go ahead, anyway,” I finally said in agreement.
27
Charlie
There were moments in my life that were particularly hard. When Sally Hemmings had said I had bird legs in the third grade. When my grandfather had suddenly died the June between sixth and seventh grade. The day Logan O’Rourke had showed up at my door, and I’d spent half the night sobbing with Teddy. When I’d watched a mahogany box lower into the ground and wished I could throw myself in after it instead of a few lumps of dirt.
And now this was another one. I had to call Marcos.
“Hey, Charlie.”
“Hey, Marcos. Look I don’t have a lot of time. We took Pedro for his MRI today, and well…”
“Charlie, just tell me. How bad?” Marcos’s deep voice was stony and cold as steel.
“Brain surgery.”
“When?” Marcos asked.
“Now. A couple hours at best.”
“I’ll be there,” Marcos said, and I believed it. “Let me call Oliver and drop off Juanito, and I’ll be there.”
Marcos must have teleported because less than an hour later I heard his voice booming down the hallway.
“Acosta. A-C-O-S-T—”
“Marcos!” I shouted, rounding the corner. Marcos’s concerned face came into view, only relieved for a moment to see a familiar face before it went right back to concerned again.
“Charlie! Where is he?” Marcos asked, looking over my shoulder.
“Hey, look. We need to talk before you go back there,” I said, stopping him before he started pushing past me.
“What? What is it?”
“They’re going to have to put him in a coma for this, Marcos,” I said, trying to keep my own voice as calm as possible.
Marcos’s face went white as a sheet. “Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. He’s doing it anyway, but you can see why I wanted to talk to you first. He’s scared to death.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Me too.”
I filled him in on what I could remember from Dr. Smith’s conference with us, my tongue tripping over some of the more complicated medical terms.
When we arrived at the room, Marcos took a deep breath and then stepped over the threshold. He went to his brother’s bedside and gave him a big bear hug. The nurse trying to hook him up to an IV and some other machines didn’t seem pleased, but oh well, she could wait. They’d already shaved Pedro’s head, and for a selfish second I mourned the loss of his soft, black hair.
“It’s okay, Perico. It’s going to be fine,” Marcos said. “You know, I never got to say that to you the first time around. But it is. We’re going to be right here.”
“Perico? What’s with the nickname? Who are you? Abuelita Rocio?” Pedro asked. He was trying to joke, but I could hear the fragile tone of his voice.
“Yeah, yeah. Save it for when you wake up,” Marcos said. His smile was comforting, but his eyebrows still hadn’t unknitted. I’d never seen the family resemblance so strongly. Marcos looked over at me and straightened back up. “I’m gonna step out and let you two lovebirds have a moment.”
Pedro watched him leave, and I bent down to rest my forehead against his. “You’re going to be fine,” I said, firmly.
“Oh, is that right?”
“Yep. You’re going to wake up, and I’m going to be right here, and you’re going to get to spend the rest of forever telling me your lame jokes.”
“Lame?” he asked.
“The lamest. I love you. I love you so much. You’re going to be fine, and I promise you’ll see me when you wake up.”
“Love you too, angel,” Pedro said before kissing me like it was the last time he was ever going to be able to.
I refused to accept that. But I kissed him just as hard in return anyway.
The poor nurse finally cleared her throat and we pulled away.
“Sorry,” Pedro said, sheepishly.
“Don’t be sorry. Y’all managed to keep your clothes on and everything,” she said, rais
ing an eyebrow. “Are you ready, Mr. Acosta?”
“Fuck no. Let’s go.”
I laughed, and just like that Pedro was wheeled away, leaving me alone. The hospital room seemed strange with no one in it, no bed, no patient. It was just a drab room with tubing and tacky, outdated wall art.
I gave that up quickly and went to the waiting area instead.
I flung myself down in one of the chairs, and after a few seconds something crinkly tapped my shoulder.
“Here, eat this, cuñado,” Marcos said, plopping his big body down in the seat next to me and tossing a granola bar into my lap. “Definitely the best thing in the snack machines. The OR snack machines are always the best, anyway.”
“How did you do this for four years?”
“Oh, it’s not so bad. When Mitch was having Juanito, I explained how you could actually get a pretty balanced meal out of these things.”
“No, I mean how did you do this for four years? The waiting? The not knowing?”
Marcos considered the question for a minute before shrugging. “I couldn’t not do it. You remember what it was like in the months after we got back. I felt like being there for Pedro was the one thing I knew I could do. It seemed like the only thing I could do back then.”
“I can see that,” I said. It made sense that Marcos had felt that way. Everyone had felt sort of helpless afterward. I’d watched Silas and Bennet flitter around helping their brothers. Clearly Marcos had been doing the same for Pedro. Teddy had tried to be there for his father as they both attempted to deal with their joint grief. All I could do was visit a gravestone and ball my eyes out. I didn’t have anyone else to focus on, so I’d just wallowed in my own misery.
I let the silence hang for a moment too long, and Marcos wrapped his arm around my shoulder in a hug. “At least this time neither of us has to do this alone.”