“Call an Uber. Go now,” Oliver says, falling effortlessly into his big-brother role. “I’ll meet you there.”
“OK,” she says. And she does.
* * *
When Oliver rushes into the ER ninety minutes later, Caroline has been there for more than an hour. She has spent the time secretly diagnosing everyone else in the waiting room. A young boy with swollen eyes and a red nose, clutching his elbow and sitting next to what appears to be his grandmother (easy: broken arm). An elderly man dozing in a wheelchair (disorientation—possible ministroke), sitting next to a younger man with the same facial structure but less wrinkles staring intently at his phone (his son, there for support). A woman in strappy heels and bright pink lipstick slumped in a chair on the far side (genital warts: is that an emergency?).
She waves Oliver over.
“You OK? Have you seen the doctor?” he says, concern all over his face.
“Still waiting. But I feel a little better. I haven’t had a cramp in a few minutes.”
Oliver studies her. “Are you sure it’s not something you ate? Maybe just a little indigestion or something. That’s supposed to get worse with pregnancy, right?”
“Oh, you’re a doctor now?” she says, instantly annoyed, even though she, too, thought earlier it might be indigestion. “No, Oliver, I obviously don’t think it’s a little indigestion. I have been in a severe amount of pain. Can you try to be less condescending, please?”
He holds up his hands in deference. “Sorry. You’re right. Do you need anything? What can I do?”
“Just sit down. Wait with me.”
So he does. He sits, propping his elbows on his knees, his heel jiggling with impatience. Caroline sniffs the air. “Is that you?”
Oliver glances down at his T-shirt. “Yeah,” he says. “Been holed up in my apartment on a four-day writing jag. I panicked when you called—no time to shower.”
She wrinkles a nose. “I hope I’m having a girl. Boys are so gross.”
He shrugs. She picks up a magazine from the table beside her. Flips through it.
“How’s work?” he asks.
“Good,” she says, looking up from the page she was reading. “Busy. This parade has taken on a life of its own. Hope Springs has so much tourism money that the budget is huge. I just bought six hundred thousand Christmas lights.” She grins, thinking how charming the town square is going to be after the parade, and shares more details with her brother: A real festive atmosphere, complete with hot chocolate stands and a bona fide choir singing carols and a firework display.
“Fireworks?” Oliver says. “Isn’t that more of a Fourth of July thing? New Year’s?”
“They’re celebratory,” Caroline says. “For any holiday, really.”
“Well, not any holiday. No one sets off bottle rockets on Easter.”
“Honestly, Oliver.” And then: “Ouch.” She puts a hand on the left side of her burgeoning stomach.
“You OK?” he asks, sitting up straighter.
“Yeah,” she says, exhaling. And then she glances at Oliver. His knee is still jiggling and he’s glancing around as if he’s expecting someone else to show up—and that’s when it hits her, all at once.
“Ollie.”
“Yeah?”
“You looking for someone?”
“What? No.”
“You sure? Because if I was sleeping with Mia, I’d be awfully anxious I’d run into her husband.” She’d been suspicious ever since she ran into them downtown the other night, even though Oliver said it was nothing.
His eyes shoot to hers. “What? Keep your voice down. I am not sleeping with Mia.”
“Then what are you doing? I know something’s going on.”
Oliver holds her gaze for a beat and then drops it, along with his shoulders. “It’s complicated.”
“I knew it,” she says. “And after you gave me all that shit, too, about Richard. What was it you said? An affair always ends like the Titanic—it goes down and takes everybody else with it.” If she’s being honest, she is experiencing a small perverse pleasure that her brother’s proving to be a complete hypocrite, but mostly she’s sad. Oliver isn’t a choirboy by a long shot, but still, he’s good, decent. He didn’t even cheat at Monopoly when they were kids. And there is a dearth of good, decent men in the world—she should know.
“I just—it’s driving me crazy, to be honest, Care. I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Oh, Ollie,” she says, and she can see that it’s true. And she doesn’t say it out loud, but she thinks it’s probably a good thing that Oliver is going to Finland in September with that weird volunteer farming organization he loves.
Oliver remains lost in thought when Caroline is called back by the nurse, and she leaves him sitting there forlornly, wishing there was something she could do.
But in the exam room, all thoughts of her brother disappear as she stares at the grainy ultrasound screen. Dr. Leong wands her, asking her questions, but all Caroline can do is gape. She’s looking at a baby. A real live baby, with a round head and a tiny nose and little fingers on each hand. It’s not her first time seeing it, of course. But before, it looked a little bit like an alien creature, and for some reason her brain didn’t make the connection—or chose to completely ignore—that this creature was actually in her stomach. Dr. Leong pats her leg, jolting her out of her reverie. “Everything looks just fine, Mom. Maybe a few less chili dogs next time?”
Mom.
Mom.
Caroline rips the paper gown off with more force than necessary and pulls her T-shirt on over her head. When she reenters the brightly lit waiting room, she finds Oliver. “C’mon,” she says to him. “We can leave.”
He glances at her. “You’re done already? Everything OK?”
She mumbles something, turning around, the sudden urge to get out of there as quickly as possible overtaking her.
“What?” Oliver jumps up, following her.
She whips around. “It was just gas.”
Oliver’s mouth drops open and then his lips start to curl up. She raises an eyebrow and pokes a finger toward him. “Don’t,” she says, readjusting her bag strap on her shoulder. “Don’t you dare.”
* * *
It’s not until later when she’s resting in bed, Oliver halfway back to Philly, that the weight of everything she felt in the exam room comes crashing down on her.
She is going to be a mother.
And she’s not so sure she wants to be.
Chapter 22
Harrison goes through the motions of his life, waking up to his alarm, going running, heading in to work, coming home late and then getting up to do it all over again. I watch him, like I’m eyeing a caged animal, waiting—but for what, I’m not sure. It doesn’t occur to me until the third day, when I’m staring at him and it strikes me that I’m wondering where my husband went, even though he’s standing in the same room I am. I haven’t just been looking at him; I’ve been looking for him.
The dopey-grinned Harrison clutching a little knitted pink-and-blue-striped beanie he had swiped from the hospital nursery the day after my very first positive pregnancy test.
The Harrison, lips pressed to my belly, whispering how we met to our second, which still would not become our first.
The Harrison, high-pitched and laughing, as he squeals Three Little Pig voices for Finley and Griffin at bedtime.
I’ve been wondering for weeks, months, even: Where did that Harrison go? But now I know the answer. Noah isn’t the only thing he lost that day. Harrison’s brushed me off every time I’ve brought it up since his drunken confession, but I’ve latched onto it, desperate to understand what he’s going through, and how to fix it. How to bring the Harrison I know back to me.
While he’s been at work, I’ve spent hours online, researching. I Googled how doctors cope w
ith death. A photo of a surgeon in a white coat crouched against a concrete wall, his head bowed, solemn, was the first result to pop up. It’s an image that went viral—the rare sight of raw emotion from a doctor who lost a nineteen-year-old patient in the ER. I sifted through Reddit and Quora and Tumblr, reading multiple versions of the same story—surgeons dealing with the death of patients. We’re not trained for this in medical school, says one. You learn how to save a life. Not how to lose one.
It lingers, says another, burns into your soul. You’re never quite the same.
By Wednesday, I feel confident enough from my research to broach the topic again with Harrison.
After my art class, I wait on the couch for him to get home. The key turns in the door, he steps into the house, and before he can evade me, go to the shower, mumble that he’s tired and is going to bed, I speak. “I think you have situational depression.”
“Nice to see you, too,” he says, standing in the archway between the foyer and the den where I’m seated.
“I’m serious,” I say. “Losing a patient—the way you lost Noah—is not easy.”
A puff of laughter escapes his lips, but he’s not smiling.
“I mean, I’m just saying it’s normal, what you’re going through. Accidents happen. Doctors aren’t perfect—you’re human. So many surgeons struggle like this—it’s like this invisible epidemic. Did you know that male doctors commit suicide at a rate seventy percent higher than other professionals?”
Harrison stares at me blankly. “I’m sorry. Is this supposed to be helpful?”
“I don’t know—I’m probably not saying anything right, it’s just that I thought you should know you’re not alone.”
“Right,” he says. “OK. I think I’m going to go to bed.” He takes a step toward the hallway.
“No, wait. Harrison. It takes time to get through something like this. And I think you need to go see someone. A counselor. A therapist.”
He scoffs. “Time? Time? Is time going to bring Noah back?”
“Well, no, but—”
“I KILLED A CHILD, MIA.” His hands tighten into fists. “It’s not normal. Please, just leave it alone.”
“I can’t leave it alone, Harrison! I can’t. Don’t you see? I get it. You’re upset; you feel responsible. But you can’t stop living your life. I know it’s why you don’t want to have a baby anymore. Maybe you feel like you don’t deserve one or, I don’t know, that you don’t deserve to be happy or something. But you do—”
“That’s what this is all about?” Harrison says. “Oh my god. I should have known.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU!” he roars. His body is still turned toward the hallway. A vein in his neck throbs. I almost think I can hear the blood rushing through it in the silence that follows his words.
I blink, feeling the weight of those words settle in my gut. My face burns—not from embarrassment as much as shock that Harrison thinks I’m selfish. And then the raw shame that just maybe he’s right.
* * *
Over the next few weeks, I vacillate between being angry at my husband and being overwhelmed with love and sorrow for him, wanting to wrap my arms around him, pull him close, suck the sadness out of him, like helium from a balloon.
The middle of the night is the worst, when he’s snoring lightly beside me. Sometimes I stare at his peaceful face and offer a fervent silent wish to the darkness that he could find that same peace when he’s awake. That I could wave a wand and make all of it—Noah, his guilt, his depression—just disappear.
Other times, a rage grips me so tight, every peaceful inhale and exhale of Harrison’s sleeping form is an aggressive personal affront. He thinks I’m selfish? He’s the one that’s been distracted, consumed by this for months, and couldn’t even bother telling me what it was. He let me believe it was only my health, the miscarriages, that concerned him. Fear of another that changed his mind about wanting a baby. And that’s when the future years of my life feel both interminable and wildly short. Is this how I will spend them? In a quiet house with a long-working shell of a husband and an empty womb? It’s these moments—when I’m a flailing fish on land—that I cast him as the callous fisherman, and it takes everything in me to keep from pushing his solid body off the bed and hearing it make a satisfying thud as it hits the floor.
During the day, Harrison works and runs and I water the garden and paint and teach my art class. I try to reach out to him. I ask him to play Boggle. Watch one of those superhero movies he loves. Go paddleboarding. I even attempt to cook for him one night.
“Did cows start flying?” he asks when he walks in the kitchen to the sight of me sautéing translucent shrimp in a pan.
“I thought the expression was pigs.”
“My mom always said cows.” He shrugs. “Must be a Cuban thing.”
It’s the most he’s said to me in days.
I know it’s the depression, but I can’t help but take it personally, as if he’s punishing me. And part of me feels like I deserve the punishment. Though I’d like to say all I’ve been doing these past weeks is focusing on my husband, on my marriage, on fixing what’s broken, it’s not true. I’ve also been talking to Oliver. It started one evening when I went out to water the garden, and I saw the first green sprouts of the seeds I had planted poking through the dirt. I was so proud of my accomplishment, I wanted to tell somebody. I snapped a picture, but instead of sending it to Harrison, to my husband, I sent it to Oliver.
Picture of thumb, too, please, he responded. Thought for sure it was black.
We’ve been texting ever since, and though the conversations are innocent—witty jokes, funny moments from our days—I know the action is not. I know these are the conversations I should be having with my husband and am not. But I also can’t help myself. As awful as it is to admit it, texting with Oliver has become the highlight of my day, and though I know that means Harrison is right—that I am selfish—I also know that right now it’s the only thing keeping me from being as depressed as my husband.
* * *
One Wednesday morning, the second week in September, instead of rolling over when Harrison’s alarm goes off, I force my eyes open, force my body to sit up. I go over to the dresser and dig to the bottom of the middle drawer, where I’m pretty sure I have an old pair of athletic shorts.
“What are you doing?” Harrison asks. He’s sitting on his side of the bed, collecting his thoughts before he stuffs his feet in his sneakers.
“I’m coming with you.” It was my latest idea on how to get through to him. To keep him from literally running away from me every morning. I was going to run with him.
“Running,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t run.”
“Maybe I should start.”
He doesn’t respond.
In the silence, my eyes drop from his face to a duffel bag on the floor, stuffed full and zipped.
“What’s that for?”
“My dad’s having his knee surgery? It’s this week.”
“Oh. Right,” I say. Lost in my own world, I had forgotten about it. But then, Harrison hadn’t mentioned it lately, either. And I have my art class to think about. I’ve never missed one and wonder if I can get a sub or will have to cancel it. My mind swirls with what I need to do to get ready. “Are we leaving today? I guess I need to shower. And pack.”
He doesn’t respond immediately. And then: “I actually thought I would go by myself.”
“What do you mean?” Even though there’s not much room for interpretation in what he said. “You don’t want me to come?”
His silence is the answer.
“You don’t want me to come,” I repeat, a statement this time.
He clears his throat. “I just need—”
“Harrison, what you n
eed is to talk to somebody. A counselor of some kind.” I know I sound exactly like Vivian, but I don’t care. “I don’t know what else to do! You’re not yourself. At all. And I get it—you’re depressed. Deeply depressed. But you can’t be the first doctor to deal with something like this. We can go together. We’ll figure this out.”
“I DON’T NEED COUNSELING,” he roars, startling me. And then, softer, but firmly: “You’re not listening,” he says. “I am different. What happened with Noah, it changed me. I thought moving here, away from Philadelphia, away from what happened, that I would get over it. That I’d slowly forget. And at first, I really did start to feel better. But it’s always there—he’s there—in the back of my mind. And it’s only gotten worse.”
“But if you—”
“Mia,” he says, a warning. And then his shoulders slump with the weight of all he’s carrying, and I don’t know how to lift it.
I redirect. “What about work?”
He pauses. “I’m taking a leave of absence.”
“What? When did you decide this?”
He swallows. “I’ve been . . . messing up recently. I can’t focus. Foster agrees it’s for the best.”
“Wait—you told Foster?” I suddenly feel even further removed from his life. In the dark. And then I remember Rebecca in the parking lot. How’s Harrison? Was I the last person to know? Or maybe it’s worse—maybe I was the last person to notice.
“He doesn’t know . . . everything. Look, I just need to get away, for a little bit.”
I stare at him, let his words sink in, what he’s really saying. “Away from me.”
His eyes flash to mine, and I know it’s true.
“Say it,” I say, challenging him.
“It’s that,” he fires back. “The way you’re looking at me right now—the way you’ve been looking at me for months. Like I’m a bigger disappointment than I already feel like I am.”
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