Five Minutes To Midnight

by C. B. Stagg

  The woman nodded while Cara Jo remained silent. It wasn’t her fault, we both knew that. And if I were to guess, I’d say moments like this were the absolute dregs of an otherwise rewarding job. But damn it, the only other person I could blame was myself. I wasn’t mentally prepared for that.

  “Do you believe in God, Ms. West?”

  It was a valid question. “I did, Dr. Sullivan. I did believe in God, until He took what little family I had away from me. And, in exchange, He let me fall in love with two babies, who will both more than likely die in my arms if they even get that far.” I stood and walked toward the door to her office, still holding my oversized belly protectively.

  “So, in answer to your question, I can say no. The God I did believe in would never let this happen, not even to a disgraceful sinner like me.” I kept having to remind myself to breathe, just breathe. “My God, I thought, was one full of unconditional love and acceptance, not one that feeds on judgment and punishment and revenge.”

  I heard Cara Jo whisper words to the doctor as I walked out. I needed some processing time.

  Even with an almost imminent double death approaching, something similar to hope began to blanket our unlikely little family. Cara Jo would tirelessly crochet away during the break between breakfast and lunch. And in the evenings, once the dinner crowds died down, she’d talk to the babies, catching them up on the gossip and the business like they were old friends.

  One cold afternoon, a box of newborn diapers appeared on the steps of my trailer. And right before Christmas, I walked by a seldom-used shed sitting on the edge of the property. I spied Roy inside, singing along to a Johnny Cash CD while carefully assembling a brand-new, cherry wood baby bed. He had no idea I saw him that day, but I couldn’t deny that it sparked something in me I was terrified to explore further. I may have all but given up, but other people in my life loved the lives I was growing.

  Soon, I prayed to the God I’d turned my back on, desperate to bear witness to one of the miracles the Bible spoke of. Eventually though, as my due date grew closer and I grew larger, I felt like Mary—only without the Joseph—despite the two beautiful people who had sacrificed for my unborn children and me.

  One would think Christmas Eve would be a slow time for an out-of-the-way diner catering more to regulars than tourists, but that wasn’t the case at Perrilloux’s. The place was hopping, and I’d never been more grateful. Had we been slow, I’d have had more time to dwell on the pain piercing through my lower back, sometimes running all the way through to my midsection. As much as I tried to push it to the back of my mind, my movements were slower. And I found my mind was too, trying to concentrate on what I was doing rather than what I was feeling.

  “Sit.” It was a command from Cara Jo, not a suggestion, but I needed to keep moving.

  “I can’t. Table four is ready to—”

  Strong hands from behind gripped my shoulders, gently shuffling me out the back door. “Now, Katy. You should know by now that when Cara Jo speaks in one-word sentences, you’d best listen. Go home, put your feet up.”

  I placed one foot on the metal step leading to my home, when an icy hot pain wrapped its sharp claws around my middle like a bloody vise, forcing me to freeze.

  “Katy?”

  I melted into a puddle on the crushed shell path below me.

  “Katy! CJ? CJ, it’s Katy! Come quick!”

  Sounds faded in and out, before my senses finally blocked everything out completely.

  I awoke with a start, having dreamed of a trash truck driving its entire route backward instead of forward. Opening my eyes, I was blinded by bright white lights, but the beep, beep, beep from the trash truck remained.

  Someone above my head started speaking, but I struggled to focus with my limbs strapped down. I turned my head, never quite reaching the voice.

  “Katy, I’m Dr. Hannah, and you’re at the hospital. You were in full-blown labor when you arrived, but we weren’t able to detect both heartbeats. Dr. Sullivan is starting to perform a C-section. You joined us just in time.” Strong hands smoothed stray hairs back from my face, but I still didn’t have eyes on the voice.

  “She’s just getting started. Now that you’re awake, do you want me to get your parents? We couldn’t allow them in without your consent.”

  I nodded as much as my head would allow.

  “Oh, Katy, baby, are you all right?” Cara Jo’s voice replaced the mystery man’s, and she appeared at my left.

  Roy stood and leaned over me, gazing over the curtain that blocked my view. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

  “Katy? Dr. Hannah said you woke up.” Dr. Sullivan’s voice was oddly comforting. I was grateful she didn’t hold my sharp tongue from a few weeks back against me. My life and the lives of my children were in her hands and, not that I had any choice in the matter, but I did trust her.

  “Welcome back, sweetheart. I’m about to cut you open and get these babies out, okay?” I stared at the light above me. Was she really expecting a response?

  An older man with tired eyes appeared over me. “Ms. West, I’m Dr. Abbott, pediatric nephrologist from Texas Children’s Hospital. I know Dr. Sullivan has discussed your babies’ situation with you. My team and I are with you tonight to do anything and everything we possibly can for your children. Tell me, Katy, do they have names yet?”

  A tear slipped from each of my eyes, and I felt both of my surrogate parents wipe them away at the same time. “Um, yes. Baby A is Wade Alexander.” I heard Roy gasp. I had given my son his middle name. “And Baby B is, um… Waverly. Her name is Waverly Anne.”

  I knew my babies wouldn’t live, but they needed good strong names, even if they’d only appear on their birth and death certificates. I said them each a few more times. After today, I didn’t expect I’d ever be able to say them aloud again.

  “Those are fine names, Katy.”

  I closed my eyes, half-hoping I’d choke on my own sorrow and die right along with my babies. Sometimes, when I allowed my mind to go to its darkest places, I prayed for death because dying seemed infinitely easier a path than having to live life missing a part of your heart.

  “Katy,” Dr. Sullivan again, “you’re going to feel some pressure, but get ready. You’re about to meet your son.” I nodded as well as I could, always staring at the light, a spotlight on one of the greatest tragedies of my life.

  “Here he is, Katy. Are you looking, sweetie?” I strained to hear something, anything, but the only sounds present were feet shuffling, low whispers, and despair.

  A little squawk charged the room into action.

  Wade was held up for a split-second for us to see, before being handed over to the NICU team. Their quickened, panicked pace started with gusto, but almost immediately dissipated. After a few seconds, and no more sweet baby sounds, a nurse quietly brought me the most beautiful, rosy pink baby I’d ever seen.

  My son.

  He was wrapped in a standard, white-striped hospital blanket, his eyes were closed, and he was not breathing.

  “I’m so sorry, Katy.” She handed him to Roy, who softly placed him on my chest. While Roy held him steady, I ran my fingers over his silky blond hair over and over, kissing any part of him I could reach. I was enchanted by his fat little cheeks and pouty lips as I searched for signs of me in his features, finding few. It was easy to see he’d have grown up to be a big, strong man like his father if he’d been given a chance.

  My silent, heartbreaking admiration was interrupted by another wail. This baby meant business. Someone took my baby boy away in time for me to see my daughter come into the world, making an Oscar worthy, drama-filled entrance. She was kicking and screaming, letting anyone within a mile radius know the world was her stage—lights, camera, action.

  “She’s good, Katy. She’s definitely better than I expected, but we need to get her to the NICU.” A nurse whisked by, just long enough for me to graze my lips across her wavy blonde hair, before carting her out with an entourage of specialized
doctors in her wake.

  The sudden change in the room left me in near silence. I was stitched up, experiencing a strange cocktail of emotions volleying between grief and gratefulness.

  Later that evening, once Waverly was stabilized and settled in the NICU, Roy and Cara Jo joined me in the nursery to say goodbye to Wade. He’d lived on this earth for about one minute, but I knew he’d live in my heart until my last breath.

  When the nurse wheeled me into what was referred to as ‘the quiet room,’ Wade was waiting for me. Looking like the angel he was, he’d been wrapped in the blue blanket Cara Jo had made him with the matching hat on his head.

  “Hey, Mom.” The short, chubby nurse assigned to assist us was pleasant, but calm and not too cheery. How many new parents had she helped with the impossible task of seeing their new baby for the last time? “Are these the grandparents?”

  I opened my mouth to clarify, but Roy chimed in.

  “Yes, ma’am, we’ve come to see our boy, and help our girl with whatever she needs.”

  For a heartbeat, my tears were of gratitude. How I would have survived without the two human beings flanking me at such an emotionally charged moment, I would never know.

  “Well, Grandpa, why don’t you help Mom unwrap her little burrito?”

  She rolled in a short padded cart and parked it right in front of me. Then Roy brought Wade over and placed him down gently. With his steadying hand, I started to unwrap my son, savoring all his little parts.

  I stroked his fingers and counted his toes, each one more perfect than the last. I inspected every detail of his face, from his tiny ears with a sprinkling of blond fuzz covering the tops to the little pink nose that looked as if it had been made from modeling clay just moments before. His eyebrows were almost translucent, but his lashes were thick and long, all fanned out across his little baby cheeks. He was a perfect package full of unseen potential and missed opportunities. The English language had no words to explain why something so perfect and pure and wonderful wasn’t given a chance.

  Roy and Cara Jo stepped in when I was no longer physically able to carry on. Cara Jo sang a little song while she gave Wade a bath. I looked on and questioned my sanity when I would hear a disturbance in the shallow tub. I would pray it was all a mistake and the tiny splashes had been made by miniature kicking feet, and not Cara Jo dipping her rag back into the water.

  When Wade was clean and sweet-smelling, Cara Jo and Roy patted him dry and diapered him, careful to add powder. Together, they dressed him in a blue and yellow gown with Mommy’s Sunshine embroidered on the front. Swaddled back in the blanket made with love for him, Roy handed him back to me.

  I sat in silence, smelling his sweet baby scent and rubbing his soft downy hair across my cheek and his dimpled fingers across my lips. Wade needed to know what was in my heart before he sat at the feet of God.

  “It is the greatest pleasure of my life to get to be your mom, even if only for a moment.” I pulled him up to rest on my shoulder, to feel the sensation of his weight there, just once.

  “Your time on Earth was too short, my angel, but your next chapter starts in Heaven with your daddy. I hate to ask this of such a little bitty guy, but… ” I carefully considered how to word my next request. “But I need your help. You’ve got your dad up there with you, but your sister is right down the hall, fighting for her life. I was hoping you might be able to help her out. She’s a fighter, I could tell from the moment she took her first breath, but I guess you already know that, don’t you?”

  I smiled, picturing my two babies playing and wrestling in my womb before the outside world made demands that their bodies weren’t capable of handling. “I need you to watch over her and keep her safe. I don’t know how I’ll live if I lose you both. Please, sweet boy. I need her. Please don’t take her with you.”

  Part 7

  “You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice.”

  - Bob Marley

  Six years ago, I said goodbye to my child—my firstborn—and with him I lost a part of my soul. It would have been simple to give up, to quit living, but that wasn’t an option. Because even bigger than the loss of one child, was the survival of another.

  And that was all on me.

  As it stands, Waverly Anne West has surpassed all challenges put before her, but there’s only so much her overtaxed body can do. My daughter is on the transplant list, awaiting a match so she can get a new kidney and a new chance at life. In my short time as a mom I’ve experienced devastating tragedy with the loss of my first love and my firstborn child, yet I’ve also been given more love than I deserve. Now, though, all I can do is pray for a miracle.

  Chapter 22

  Christian

  THE PHONE RANG ONE TIME, scaring me out of the world Katy’s words had built. How long had I been sitting here? Katy’s book lay in my lap, open to the last page.

  “Hey, Mom.” I wish I had tested my voice before I spoke, or at least cleared my throat. My words cracked and choked me, revealing much more about my emotional state than I was hoping to. I coughed.

  “Did you finish it?” Her words were clipped, disturbing my silent reverie. She knew my entire life had changed over the course of a few hours.

  I checked the phone. 6:07 a.m. “Yeah, I did. Mom… ”

  Still weak. Still too telling of the rawness I felt all the way to the marrow of my bones. My mind needed time to process.

  “Is it you, honey? Is Katy talking about you?”

  “Yeah, Mom, I’m pretty positive it’s me, but you have to know something.” I sighed. The days of having to confront my shortcomings and explain my bad decisions to my parents were supposed to be in the past. Now, I was that rebellious teenager all over again.

  “I didn’t remember. I hardly remembered anything from that night. But now, after reading her words, I can remember it all like it was yesterday.”

  “Then you need to get in the car, right now. They’re at Texas Children’s Hospital. Cara Jo called a few minutes ago. Katy went to check on Waverly and couldn’t wake her. Cara said she was—”

  I hung up the phone. I’d heard enough.

  I jumped into my truck, raging storm be damned. For more than five years, they’d done it on their own, but I was here now. I was ready to make up for lost time.

  I was getting my girls.

  Chapter 23

  Kaitlin

  EVERY TIME I ENTERED the hospital doors with my daughter in my arms, I wondered if I’d walk out alone. When she was hospitalized, whether it be for an infection directly related to her disease or something random, the severity of her situation grew even more dire. She needed a kidney or she would die. Dialysis wouldn’t be an option for much longer.

  I jumped when I heard the gentle sweep of the heavy door being opened, having become attuned to catch each bump in the night. Vitals again, I assumed. The last thing I remembered, I’d been seated by her bed, holding her little hand in mine. I alternated between praying for more miracles that weren’t coming, and escaping my reality via a trashy romance novel. It wasn’t uncommon to find myself sprawled out across the end of Waverly’s too-big bed, with my butt still firmly planted in the uncomfortable pleather seat. The Kindle from which I’d been reading was still propped up on the bed, but the screen must have gone dark long before.

  Sitting upright, I felt the strain I’d been putting on my back in such a precarious position. I shook the fog from my mind and stood to stretch.

  That’s when I noticed him.

  It wasn’t a nurse who’d come in, it was Christian. He was standing on the opposite side of Waverly’s bed, watching her sleep. I watched as his fingers lightly danced through the blonde curls on top of her head and grazed her brows, her cheeks, her jaw.

  “Hey.” My acknowledgement, hardly more than a squeak, was cloaked in sleep and not backed with the power I’d intended. He raised his head, eyes swollen and red, with new tears threatening to fall.

  “Katy.” My name rol
led off his lips like a prayer.

  “Christian.” His was my Amen.

  “Come here.”

  His almost imperceptible request, coupled with the spread of his arms, was too much to resist. This man wasn’t just my friend. In the eight short months since we’d met, he’d carved out a place in my heart. And for the first time ever, I didn’t fight what I felt. I was done trying to define whatever was happening between us. Because, at that moment, watching my daughter once again fight for her life, I needed strength and support. And if this kind and beautiful man was offering, I was taking.

  “You’re all wet.” I was, but he didn’t seem to mind. He pulled me closer into his arms.

  Embracing him, I inhaled his scent, memorizing the hint of coffee mixed with his signature citrus cologne and a tiny splash of sweet mint.

  “I know. I couldn’t carry Waverly and my umbrella.” My head fit perfectly over his heart as I let the rhythm of Christian wash through and over me. We held each other with the comfort and ease of seasoned lovers, both equally supporting the other’s weight. It felt good. It felt right. And when the breathless silence became too much, I pulled back to look at the man I’d spent the last few months slowly falling in love with.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He looked between Waverly and me as new tears sprung to his eyes. “I read your memoir.”

  A deep heat crept into my bones. My memoir? The one I’d used to heal, to move on, to finally get over the father of my children? I couldn’t fathom what had led Claire to share such a deeply personal piece of writing with her son. I wasn’t mad or even sorry he’d read all about my life, but I was confused about her motivation. And he still hadn’t really answered my question. Why was he here?