by Mary Stone
The nurse-man didn’t roll his eyes, but he might as well have. “All right. Let me have a look.”
He moved forward. He had one of those stubbly, sexy jaws, and was cute, even though he was probably old enough to be her father. An older man would probably know how to take care of a woman. Damn, she wished she had a sugar daddy.
He wore a nameplate that said M LAMB, and he smelled like the antiseptic wash he’d just used to clean his hands. She squirmed. It was bad enough, the female nurses practically sticking their entire hand inside her, but this guy was a judgmental prick. An attractive, judgmental prick. And none-too-gentle, either. He shoved her legs apart and stuck his hand up her hoo-ha like she was some kind of farm animal. As he felt around in there, she groaned at the dull pain in her abdomen.
He pulled out just as quickly and snapped off the gloves, then said to the nurse, “Looking good. Shouldn’t be long now.”
“Is everything okay?” Avery asked him.
He turned, as if surprised to see she actually had a mouth. He nodded. “All as it should be, so far. Now…Miss…” he glanced at her name on the wipe-off board on the wall, “Boone. I’m assuming you have no birth plan for the child. What pain relief options have you chosen?”
She frowned. Birth plan? “What’s that?”
He let out a sigh, like, Do I really have to explain this common term to you, dumbass? “It’s a plan that tells us things like if you want an epidural.” When she still looked at him dumbly, he went on, “It’s an anesthetic that we’ll administer directly to the spinal cord to help with the contractions. Do you want to be numbed to reduce the pain?”
She wanted to say no, she didn’t need it. She didn’t need anything where his smug ass was concerned. But it already hurt like a mother and would probably get worse if what she’d seen on television and in movies was true. “Oh. I guess so.”
He looked at the other nurse. “Get the anesthesiologist down here.”
She wasn’t sure if she’d made the right decision. No pain was good, but she had no clue what she was in for. A well-meaning friend had bought her a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, but she’d used it as a doorstop. She hadn’t wanted to face the reality of what was happening until the last possible moment. It was all so scary.
The man-nurse continued, “And…as far as what happens after the birth. Have you planned that?”
“After?” She wished all of this didn’t sound like a foreign language. It seemed so easy. What did he think happened afterwards? She went home with a baby in tow. The end. What else would happen? They didn’t expect her to stay in the hospital for the rest of her life, did they?
“Yes. If you’re interested in exploring adoption, or if you’d like to talk with a counselor.”
Oh, of course. That was it. She was young, and all alone, so they were already stacking the chips against her that she wouldn’t be able to cut it as a mom. Everyone was always against her—her mom, her dad, her teachers, even Billy. But she was set to prove them all wrong.
“No. I’m not giving the baby up for adoption, thank you very much,” she said, lifting her chin with pride.
Nurse-man nodded, but she was sure there was doubt clouding his eyes. “All right. But we noticed that you left the next-of-kin off your paperwork. We need to fill that out, should we need someone to make decisions for you.”
“Why would I need that?”
“It’s just a precaution.”
She flattened the sheet over her enormous belly. “Well. He’s not really related to me, but you could put Billy. My b…” She stopped. They kept breaking up and getting back together, at least twice in the last month, so she wasn’t sure where they stood at that moment. “The baby’s father.”
She rattled off his phone number, and he wrote that down. “Sounds good,” he said as a gray-haired, portly guy with a white coat, who looked kind of like a gray Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle appeared in the doorway.
“Who’s having a baby?” He grinned goofily.
Avery rolled her eyes. Adults everywhere either treated her like she didn’t exist, or like she was three. She wished she could press fast-forward on this entire day. She just wanted to meet the creature that had been growing inside her for the past nine months and get this over with. And maybe get the hell out of there. Forget about milking a longer hospital stay. These people were douches. “So, you’re the doctor?”
He nodded. “That’s what they tell me.”
She wasn’t sure she wanted this jokester anywhere near her baby. But half the personnel in this hospital had already been between her legs, so she figured, why the hell not. If it got her out of here faster, bring it. She spread her legs apart and let him have a feel too.
“Looking good,” he said, feeling around a little more gently than Nurse McDreamy Asshole. “Anesthesiologist’s here. Let’s get you all numbed up and feeling fine, shall we? Next stop, cloud nine!”
She hated the needle for the epidural, and she didn’t really feel like it did much good. They’d put it in her back, dammit, probably messing up the tramp stamp she’d gotten last year. Her first tattoo, one she’d had to forge her parents’ signature for. She’d gotten three more since then, since Billy’s best friend was a tattoo artist. Birds on her shoulder, thorns around her ankle, a hollow heart with the word Billy written in curly letters on her hipbone. That one had hurt like a mother, but he loved to kiss it every time he went down on her.
She still felt the pain as she pushed. Maybe it was worse because she didn’t have anyone there that she knew or trusted. All these nurses and doctors yelling orders at her, and not one of them actually knew her or cared what happened to her. Not really. They were all just here to do their jobs.
Right before the baby made its appearance, she began wishing she and Billy hadn’t fought so much, so that maybe he could be there, with her, holding her empty hand.
But then she heard the baby’s cry, and all of those thoughts went away.
“Congratulations,” one of the female nurses said as she wiped a sweat-soaked tendril of magenta-dyed hair from Avery’s face. “You have a beautiful boy.”
“A big one too. Ten pounds, three ounces,” someone called from another part of the room.
A boy, she thought excitedly, thinking of the name she’d wanted. Billy had never wanted to talk names. In his mind, she wasn’t sure he even got that he was going to become a dad. She whispered the name, almost to herself, “Diesel Warren Boone.”
Warren after her dear grandfather, who’d died a year ago. Diesel because she just liked the way it sounded. Tough, like he was going to be. She’d give him a baby mohawk for his first haircut. And later? She was going to make sure he had a Harley. All the girls would go crazy for him, the little heartbreaker.
Though she was exhausted, she managed to peel her top half off the delivery table so that she could try to get a glimpse of the baby as the nurses crowded around him, tending to him at a station in the corner of the room. The cries were loud, but the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard.
“Is he okay?” she asked.
“Oh, yes. Perfect,” one of the nurses said to her. “What a beautiful little man you have.”
“Can I hold him?” she asked, reaching out her still empty hands.
“Just a moment, and he’s all yours,” the nurse said. Avery smiled at the thought of that. All mine. Yes, that’s right. ALL mine.
McDreamy Asshole stepped back into the room, his hands in his pockets as he approached her bed after stopping to take a good long look at the perfect little boy she’d created.
“Congratulations,” the nurse-man said and tapped his finger against the line of her IV.
Avery stiffened. It wasn’t that he was necessarily doing anything wrong. He was a nurse, after all. He just seemed…nervous, maybe. His eyes kept darting over to where the other nurses were still toweling off her baby.
Between her legs, the doctor was doing something she couldn’t feel, but she kept her eyes o
n the nurse. She didn’t trust the creepy man.
Little Diesel screamed, shifting her attention to the bloodred infant. They’d jabbed his little heel and were squeezing blood from the wound, none too gently. No wonder the darling boy was so unhappy. Avery was in the process of opening her mouth to tell the witches to be more careful when her vision began to blur.
“Wha…” was all she could manage.
Avery closed her mouth. She couldn’t remember what she was going to say.
The male nurse walked away, his hands still in his pockets as her baby’s screams grew dull and the room swelled into darkness.
Avery blinked, squinting against the bright lights overhead. She shifted in the bed she was laying in and immediately winced. Her va-jaja felt like it had taken a beating.
She looked around, noting the clean gown she was wearing and morning sun streaming through the window. Where was she?
More importantly, where was Diesel?
Probably in the nursery, she decided, and she must be in one of the recovery rooms on the labor and delivery floor. Trying to peek around the curtain separating her from the door, she spotted another patient just a few feet away. She suspected it was another mother who’d just given birth. From the balloon bouquet at the foot of the other patient’s bed, it was clear her roommate had more fans than she did.
But that didn’t matter so much. She had Diesel, and he had her. She couldn’t wait to see her beautiful baby boy, now that he’d been cleaned up.
A nurse walked in and smiled, though the gesture seemed a little…sad? “Oh, you’re up.”
Avery tried to sit up in bed, and the nurse rushed over to help her. She winced again. Wow. The space between her legs seriously burned. Was she wearing a diaper? A cold diaper? “What’s going on down…”
“You have an ice pack down there, to help with the pain and swelling.”
“Oh.” As she sat up, the curtain behind the nurse wavered, and Avery spotted an old, frail woman in the other bed.
In maternity? What was going on?
She looked around, confused. She was sure that the wallpaper in the maternity wing had been a rose color, and there’d been pictures of babies on the walls of the other room she was in. But this room was blue and covered with ocean scenes.
“Am I still in the maternity ward?” she asked.
The nurse shook her head, the sad smile returning. “We thought it was better to move you to intensive care.”
Intensive care?
A beeping in the room sped up as her heart rate increased. “Am I all right?” she asked, looking down at herself. She felt a little woozy from the epidural, a little nauseated too, and there was that dull pain and burning below the sheet, but she figured that was normal for what she’d been through. “I mean, I feel okay.”
“Oh…yes,” the nurse said, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around her arm. “You’re fine.”
As she pushed a button, making the cuff contract on her arm, Avery said, “Well, can I see my baby now? Is he in the nursery?”
The woman didn’t answer. Just great. Another one who treated her like she didn’t exist. The woman wrote something down on her tablet and said, “The doctor will come to see you now.”
Avery blinked and sat up even straighter, pulling the sheet up over a belly that now looked like a semi-deflated beach ball. “Is everything okay with the baby?”
The nurse opened her mouth as if she had something to say but closed it again as if she had no idea how to say it. She cleared her throat and tried again. “One moment. I’ll let the doctor explain everything to you.”
As promised, the doctor appeared a moment later. The jokester. She expected some lame joke, but he did not look in a joking mood right now. He came up close to her and took her hand. “I’m sorry, Miss Boone. There were…complications.”
Avery swallowed, her heart beginning to pound. “He’s all right, isn’t he?”
The doctor bowed his head, then shook it almost imperceptibly. “I’m sorry. No, he’s not.”
“He…you mean, he…” She couldn’t get the word out. When she did, her voice cracked. “Died?”
With a single mournful movement, the doctor nodded.
“But how? He was so healthy. He cried so loud! That’s got to be wrong!” Avery shouted, ready to tear off the sheets and find the nursery herself. Surely, they were saying this to the wrong mother, because Diesel had been perfect. Perfect.
“Sometimes these things happen to newborns,” he said. “He was fine after the initial examination, and then he went into cardiac arrest, and could not be revived.”
She stared at him, sure this was a nightmare, and any moment she’d wake up and find her baby in the crook of her arm. Diesel. Diesel Warren Boone.
“I don’t believe it.” She looked around the intensive care room in which she’d found herself. “Why am I in here? None of this makes sense.”
“You stopped breathing,” the doctor told her. “You actually died before we were able to bring you back.”
She had…died?
Avery shuddered. “When did Diesel…” she almost couldn’t say the word, “die?”
The doctor coughed into his hand, his face growing red. He was getting emotional too. “It all happened at nearly the same time. You stopped breathing and almost all attention went to you, trying to save you. The baby went to the nursery while we stabilized you. A moment later, the child went to cardiac arrest.” He coughed again. “He couldn’t be saved.”
Avery just stared at the doctor, her heart breaking with its every beat.
“We can do an autopsy to—”
Horror filled Avery from the top of her hair to the tips of her toes. “No!” The thought of them cutting into her child. Pulling out his brain so that it could be weighed? Bile filled her mouth, and she was forced to swallow the noxious liquid. “Do you have to?”
The doctor’s hands went into his pockets, stirring a memory she couldn’t fully see. “No, you don’t have to, but it might help you come to peace with why the baby died.”
Avery thought about that. Did it even matter? Diesel Warren was dead and nothing, no explanation would bring him back.
She didn’t know what to do. For the first time in forever, she wished her folks were here. She wished an adult with adult experience and knowledge could tell her what to do.
Just then, Nurse McDreamy Asshole stepped into the room, but this time, he didn’t look so assholeish. He looked sad. She nearly cried he appeared to be so filled with compassion.
“I’m sorry for interrupting, doctor, but you’re needed in room seven.”
Frowning, the doctor tried to smile at Avery. “Again, I’m sorry,” the jokester said. That’s what he’d been before, the jokester, right? Maybe all of this was just some sick joke. But he stepped back behind the curtain without revealing the punch line. “I’ll be back to visit you again later.”
She didn’t want him back, but said, “Okay.”
After the doctor left, the nurse-man she met before stepped closer. “I’m so very sorry,” McDreamy said, taking her hand. He handed her a small box. “I made a memory box for you. When you’re ready, you’ll find a lock of hair, hand and footprints, pictures, things to help you through this terrible time.”
Avery held the box to her chest, tears pouring down her cheeks. “Thank you.” She looked at the door where the doctor had exited. “They want me to do an autopsy.”
McDreamy frowned, but only for the slightest moment. “How do you feel about that?”
“I…I don’t know.”
He leaned forward. “Want my advice?”
She nodded vigorously. She really couldn’t believe she’d thought this man was an asshole at first. He was so nice. “Please. What should I do?”
“Don’t let them cut him up.” Avery shuddered at the thought, and McDreamy patted her hand. “We can offer cremation, and you’ll be able to keep his urn with you forever.”
The thought pleased her greatly. But…<
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“I can’t afford a funeral or anything like that.”
McDreamy nodded solemnly and lifted a clipboard he’d been carrying onto the bedside table. “We have funds that can cover the whole cost for situations like yours.”
She blinked. “Really?”
He looked so compassionate that tears sprang to her eyes again. “Really. I’ve already set the wheels into motion to make sure I’m not offering you something I can’t give. But, if you’ll sign this paper, I’ll take care of everything.”
He handed her a form that seemed to have twenty pages, written in the tiniest font she’d ever tried to read. She gave up almost immediately.
She was so tired. So devastated. She simply didn’t want to think about it anymore.
Flipping to the last page, she scrawled her name and thrust the clipboard back at the nurse. “When can I see him?” She wasn’t fully sure if she wanted to. Did she want to see the beautiful baby she’d had inside her for nine months…an empty shell that would never grow up, never get his first haircut, never have a first girlfriend, never take his first motorcycle ride?
The compassionate smile faltered a little. “Are you sure you want to?”
Avery sucked in a breath but couldn’t get enough oxygen into her lungs. She saw bright spots in her vision. The room was closing in on her. This wasn’t really happening.
McDreamy moved to her IV pole, started fiddling with the tubing. “I’m just going to give you a little something to help with your nerves.”
Avery couldn’t breathe. Something to help with her nerves sounded really good, so she didn’t argue with him.
She hadn’t had a birth plan when she’d come into the hospital, but she’d formulated one since. And this wasn’t in the plan. She was supposed to leave here, not alone, but with her child. She was going to go back to Billy and tell him it was over, that she and Diesel would be just fine without his lying, cheating ass. She was going to raise Diesel to be a motorcycle badass, without his stupid father in the picture. It would be hard, but they would be fine, because they would be together.