by Cara Malone
“Bad,” he said. “The rate of preeclampsia in our clinical trial patients is actually one percentage point worse than the general population. That’s within the standard deviation so I don’t believe our calcium supplement trial is causing any harm, but I would have really loved to have you here so we could discuss the possibility of altering or terminating the study.”
Mercedes put her elbows on the counter, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “Maybe we should have just terminated it. I could be in Evanston right now.”
“We still have all this data to parse,” Charlie said. He was right – even without good results, there was still a lot of work to do to call this study complete. They’d promised Seattle Reserve Hospital a research report, and Mercedes had enticed Charlie to work with her on the promise of racking up a publishing credit.
“Well, I guess we better get to work,” Mercedes said, picking up her coffee and taking a long sip. It was hot, burning her tongue, and a little more bitter than the coffee in Evanston. They liked it strong in Seattle, and she’d need that to get through the next few months. “Get me the patient charts for the women who haven’t given birth yet. I’d like to get them all in here for examinations.”
Being in Seattle while Lily approached her due date in Evanston was like trudging through quicksand. Days passed, and then a week, and Mercedes was getting no closer to her goal. She saw patients, delivered a few babies, and became increasingly demoralized by the results that were coming in for the clinical trial.
It was pretty obvious – they’d wasted four years of research and a year of clinical trials just to prove that, contrary to what the previous literature had suggested, calcium had no effect on the rate of preeclampsia.
Mercedes was sitting alone in the lab one afternoon, compulsively drinking coffee and typing data into a spreadsheet so she could get the findings written up and put an end to this debacle, when her phone rang.
Lily. Her heart leapt, but instead she saw her mother’s name on her screen.
“Mom?” she asked, answering the call on speaker phone. “Everything okay?”
“Not exactly,” her mother said, her voice clipped.
“What’s going on?” Mercedes asked.
She was used to her mother creating crises out of thin air – when she was a kid, it was answering the door for the mail man in case he looked inside the house and saw the mess. When Mercedes was in college and her relationship with her mother was primarily conducted over the phone, it was the fact that she couldn’t – wouldn’t – come home for the holidays.
And for the last eight months, it had been the constant back-and-forth argument over what was worthy enough to take up space in one of the dozens of plastic bins Mercedes had bought, and what was trash. No matter how many times Mercedes tried to argue with her mother about a scrap of paper or an old newspaper, her mother always had reasons why they were indispensable, and they always made their way into the bins.
She was expecting a minor crisis like this. Instead, her mother said, “The sheriff’s department thinks my house is a fire hazard. I just know it was that nosy woman at the end of the street – she turned me in.”
“Mom, I’ve been telling you that house is dangerous for months,” Mercedes said, wincing. Years, even.
“Well, the sheriff doesn’t live here. What business is it of his?” her mother snapped. “Or yours, for that matter.”
“People care about your safety, Mom,” Mercedes said. “Is that such a bad thing?”
“Yes, it is when they’re threatening to evict me!” her mother said, finally getting to the point.
Mercedes stopped typing. “What?”
“They’re giving me one week to clean out my house to their standards,” her mother said. “Or they’re going to kick me out and condemn the building!”
Mercedes pinched the bridge of her nose for what felt like the hundredth time since she returned to Seattle. The stressors were just continuing to pile up. “What did Dr. Silva say? Have you talked to him about this yet?”
“Dr. Silva is no help!” her mother snapped. “He says I have no choice but to comply. I told you I didn’t need a therapist and now look what’s happening. I could have just gone on living my life perfectly happy if you and your sister hadn’t taken it upon yourselves to start fixing problems that didn’t exist.”
“Oh, they existed,” Mercedes said, getting exasperated. This was the last thing she needed right now. She took a deep breath, trying to be patient, and asked, “What happens next? Do you need me to come home and help you clear everything out?”
“You’re not clearing my house out!” her mother snapped. “Help me figure out a way to keep the sheriff out – that’s what I need from you, since you insist on being such a great help.”
“Okay,” Mercedes said, trying not to sigh audibly into the phone. “I’ll call you back in a few minutes, okay, Mom?”
“Okay,” she said, then hung up in a huff.
Mercedes put her head in her hands, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyelids until she saw stars. She’d have to call Jewel, or maybe she should call Dr. Silva first. One of them would have a plan of action and she’d figure out a way to make it work with all the other stuff she needed to get done.
One good thing might come out of it. If Mercedes had to make an emergency trip back to Evanston, she’d get to spend some time with Lily. She was due any day now and Mercedes had been hoping that nothing would stop her from being there for the birth of the baby.
She lifted her head and saw Charlie standing in the doorway, his mouth slightly ajar.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.” He was holding a pair of coffees, looking like he wasn’t quite sure what to say or do next. “Your mom’s a hoarder, huh?” he finally said, coming a little further into the room and setting the coffee down beside Mercedes’ empty cup.
“Yes,” she said.
There it was – the secret that she’d been trying so desperately to segregate from her life in Seattle was out in the open after all.
She looked at Charlie expectantly, waiting for him to shake his head, curl his lip, or maybe just tell her that she was a terrible daughter for leaving her mother alone to deal with her compulsions all those years.
Instead, he just said, “My aunt’s a hoarder.”
Mercedes cocked her head at him, taken aback. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he said. “They had to do a clean-out for her, too, only the sheriff did it instead of the family. They filled two huge dumpsters full of her stuff, then just hauled it all to the dump. She never really recovered. It’s probably better that you and your family have a head-start to help her through it – it’ll be less traumatic for everyone.”
“Well, maybe not everyone.” Mercedes smiled.
She shook her head and Charlie asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Do you have any idea how terrified I was of you – or anyone else – finding out about my mother?” she asked.
“I have some idea,” Charlie said, rolling his eyes. “I assume that’s why you froze me out and left with nothing more than a quick email telling me to ‘keep calm and carry on’ with the clinical trial.”
“I’m sorry,” Mercedes said. “I couldn’t imagine anyone being capable of empathizing with that situation, and I definitely thought everyone would villainize me, but now I’m realizing that had a lot more to do with my own guilt.” She picked up her new coffee cup and gave him a regretful look. “I need to go home.”
“I know,” he said.
“I don’t think I can come back,” Mercedes added, the words coming out before she realized she’d made that decision. “My mom needs me, and more importantly, Lily needs me. This study has been falling apart for months and I don’t think I could forgive myself if I missed the birth of Lily’s child for a clinical trial that was never going to help anyone.”
“I understand,” Charlie said, holding up his hand to stop the stream of ap
ologies coming out of her mouth. “Look, this past year has been rough and I don’t think I’m going to agree to do any more studies with you in the future-” he said this part teasingly, although there was some obvious truth in it “-but you have to do what’s right for you, and I don’t think any of the choices you’ve made would have resulted in a different study outcome if you’d stayed here the whole time. Go.”
“Thank you,” Mercedes said, standing up and throwing her arms around Charlie. It was a friendly gesture, a total departure from the grudging nature of their professional relationship. She’d never really looked at Charlie as anything other than a mildly adversarial research assistant before, but now she wondered if he could be a friend – or at least an ally. “Send me whatever data we get once the trial is done and I’ll do all the scut work to compile it – it’s the least I can do.” Then she grinned and said, “I’ve got to get back to Illinois.”
18
Lily
Things in Evanston had risen to a fever pitch in February.
Lily was paying particularly close attention to her body because as the end of the month drew near, she knew that she could go into labor at any minute. Mercedes had visited on Valentine’s Day and Lily hoped that her body would cooperate with her and choose that as the optimal moment to go into labor but her body had other ideas.
She’d never imagined having anyone other than her mother by her side in the delivery room, but now that Mercedes was in her life and promising to stay, she found herself holding her breath and praying that she’d be there for the birth of the child that Lily had begun to think of as not just hers, but theirs.
She didn’t give birth on Valentine’s Day, and Mercedes’ next scheduled visit was at the beginning of March. To get her research done at a reasonable speed and come back to Lily sooner, they’d decided that every two weeks was the most frequently she could come back.
Besides the baby, there was a whirlwind of activity going on around Lily. Her Graft 3D machine had been delivered and it would be set up and ready to begin incubating tissue in the next couple of weeks. She was scrambling to find the right person to spearhead that project before she left on her three-month maternity leave. What should have been a restful time of quiet preparation instead turned into a mad dash to finish projects and close previous chapters in her life.
And Lily’s mother was at an all-time high doting level, calling her even more frequently than Mercedes did to find out how she was feeling in the last few weeks of her pregnancy. She was glad to have her, but she also missed Mercedes’ even temper and calm professionalism when it came to the baby.
That’s why she always found a reason to smile whenever Mercedes’ name popped up on her phone, even if her voice was going to be coming from two thousand miles away.
“Hey,” Lily answered one afternoon when she was working with the installation technicians in her newly painted and upgraded laboratory. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too,” Mercedes said on the other end of the line. She sounded breathless, like she’d been rushing.
“Are you busy at work?” Lily asked.
“I’m not at work,” Mercedes said. “Well… I’m not at Seattle Reserve.”
“Where are you?” Lily asked, just as she heard footsteps behind her.
They stopped in the doorway to the lab and she heard Mercedes’ voice in stereo – once in her ear, and then again behind her. “Turn around.”
Lily practically dropped her phone. She spun around and Mercedes caught her in her arms, pulling her into a long embrace right in front of the poor technician, who was probably wondering what the hell was going on and why he had suddenly become the audience to a tearful reunion.
“What are you doing here?” Lily asked, smothering Mercedes with kisses before remembering her professional demeanor and letting her go.
“It’s a long story,” Mercedes said. “My mom’s in trouble and I have to help her clean her house up before the sheriff does it for her. I just had to come here and see you first, though.”
“I’m glad you did,” Lily said, kissing her again. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too,” Mercedes said. “I can’t stay long, but I’ve got something important to talk to you about. Can we go someplace private?”
Like the call room? Lily thought, resisting the urge to bite her lip in temptation right in front of the installation tech. Sorry, buddy – you’re on your own with that machine for now.
“Sure,” Lily said. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is beautiful,” Mercedes said.
She took Lily’s hand and guided her down the hall. They ducked into the first call room they came to, which was empty at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. Mercedes locked the door so they wouldn’t be bothered, and then she took Lily’s hands in hers.
“My clinical trial is a flaming dumpster fire of a disaster,” she said, but she was grinning.
“Oh no.” Lily frowned. “I know you said the data wasn’t what you were hoping-”
“Not at all,” Mercedes said with a laugh. “But that’s okay. It means there’s nothing holding me in Seattle anymore, other than some paperwork that I can finish up from anywhere.”
“You’re coming back?” Lily asked.
“I already came back,” Mercedes said. “I turned in my letter of resignation at Seattle Reserve Hospital. I gave up the lease on my house and I made arrangements for a moving company to pack up all my stuff and ship it here. Lily, I’m ready for us to start our lives together.”
Then she dropped to one knee.
“What are you doing?” Lily asked. Her heart was pounding and the baby was kicking against the front wall of her belly, aware of the abrupt change in her body.
“I want to start our life together off right,” Mercedes said. “Lily Thomas, will you marry me? I don’t have a ring because there wasn’t time, but we’ll go to the jewelry store together and I’ll get you any ring you want.”
“All I want is you,” Lily said. She pulled Mercedes to her feet and right before she pulled her into a kiss, she said, “Yes. I can’t wait to marry you.”
When they finally ended their kiss, she pulled back and said, “Please tell me you’re not going to run off right this minute and leave me here in this call room.”
Mercedes smiled regretfully at her. “I already called and made arrangements for a dumpster and a temporary storage unit to be delivered to my mom’s house. Jewel’s at work and she won’t be available until later. I have to go supervise the cleanup. I wish I could stay here with you.”
“I might just have to take you hostage,” Lily said, tangling her fingers up in Mercedes’ and kissing her knuckles. “I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life. It can’t be over so soon.”
Just then, she sucked in air as a sharp pain shot through her core. “Ouch.”
“What?” Mercedes asked. “Are you okay?”
“Just a cramp,” Lily said, her hand going automatically to her stomach. They’d started around breakfast and had been getting more intense all day – but when she was woken up by a dull cramp low in her belly, she refused to connect the dots because Mercedes wasn’t there. She couldn’t have the baby until she came back, and her next visit had been a week away.
Mercedes lit up, then guided Lily over to the call room bed. “You’re in labor. The baby’s coming!”
“My water hasn’t broken,” Lily said. She knew she’d been having small contractions all day, but without that final sign, she’d been praying for a false alarm. Now that Mercedes was here, though, there was no reason why she couldn’t be excited about it.
“Are you going to argue with me or are you going to listen to your obstetrician fiancée and let her help you have this baby?” Mercedes asked with a smirk.
“It’s time, isn’t it?” Lily asked. Then she frowned. “Oh, but you have to leave to help your mother. I can’t do this without you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mercedes
said. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
She went into the hallway and snagged a wheelchair that had been folded and left leaning against the wall, then helped Lily into it. She breathed through another small contraction and Mercedes walked her through it. They really hadn’t needed that birthing class – not when Lily had her own personal obstetrician at her disposal – but it was nice to know what was coming.
“Let’s get you to the delivery room,” Mercedes said. “Your contractions aren’t very strong so it’ll probably still be a while, but we can get you a bed and make you comfortable while we wait.”
She pushed Lily into the hallway and Lily said, “You were supposed to meet the dumpster delivery guy at your mom’s house, was that it?”
“Yeah,” Mercedes said. “And the guy with the storage pod. Don’t worry about it, though. We’ve got until next Monday to figure out my mom’s situation. I’ll just have to reschedule-”
“Call Sarah,” Lily said. She felt a little silly being wheeled through the hospital where she worked when just a few minutes before, she’d been setting up the Graft 3D lab and perfectly fine. The least she could do was solve one of Mercedes’ problems. “Chloe told me she’s on vacation this week and I know she stayed in town. She can go over to your mom’s house and take delivery.”
“I barely know Sarah,” Mercedes hedged. “She wouldn’t want to do that.”
“She’s a really sweet girl,” Lily said. “I’m sure she won’t mind.”
“I don’t want to impose-” Mercedes continued to object, and Lily tilted her head back to look at her.
“Hey,” she said, getting Mercedes’ attention. When she looked down at Lily with those big, intense eyes, Lily said, “You’re not imposing. You’re my fiancée, and my friends are your friends. Besides, they all liked you from the start – Chloe’s been asking me for weeks why I was such a fool to let you actually leave Evanston.”