Skin Like Dawn (When You Come to Me)

by Alyse, Jade

  “Now, Tallie...”

  “I’m listening.”

  He sighed heavily. “Her name is Elise. She’s an artist and has a few pieces in local galleries.”

  “Elise. Hmm. Is she pretty?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Haven’t really looked at her.”

  “Brandon...”

  He sat up, too. “I’m serious. She just goes with me to the galleries in the area and helps me with envisioning concepts. Nothing more.”

  “I see.” She wasn’t about to allow to continue. Absolutely not. “Well...from now on, I’ll be joining you at these art galleries. I may have more of a scientific mind, but I’ll do my best. You can tell Elise that her services are no longer needed.”

  “Damn you, Tallie.”

  “What?”

  “I love it when you get like this. It drives me crazy.”

  “Like what?”

  “All jealous and protective.” He now loomed over her, prompting her to nestle down on her back and gaze up at him. “You really love me, don’t you?”

  She shrugged. “Eh...”

  “Well, here’s your chance to show me.”

  Then, he made love to her again.

  THE FOLLOWING WEEK, SHE HAD A PATIENT RECORD OVERSIGHT, that one of the pediatricians caught before Head Nurse Wendy ever had a chance to.

  She blamed it on the thirty minutes she spent upon arrival to the hospital, dumping the entire contents of her breakfast into and all around one of the bathroom stalls. By the time she actually took it upon herself to get to work at her small desk, her thoughts tarried off into the unsettled rumblings in her stomach just long enough that a folder slipped through her giant stack, and got tucked under some shelving in the corner.

  That is when she met Dr. Carrie Ryan Meyer, a short, auburn-haired resident in her final stretch, looking to nab one of the hospital’s coveted fellowships in the coming months. She had a pleasant ease about her, very uncharacteristic for someone who desired to cut open unsuspecting humans’ bodies for a living.

  “Mateo Fonseca.” Dr. Meyer leafed through the patient’s folder briefly before handing it back to Natalie. “Been in and out of this hospital since he was five years old. Crazy, right?”

  “It’s sad, really.” Natalie then closed her eyes, pursing her lips to quell the emptying needs of her stomach. “Really...sad.”

  Brows furrowed, Dr. Meyer looked at her. “Are you feeling okay?”

  Muting a belch, she inhaled deeply. “Yes, Dr. Meyer, I’m fine.”

  “Call me ‘Carrie’, please.” She walked closer to Natalie, lifting her wrist to monitor her pulse. She then glanced at her watch. “Your pulse is racing. Come with me, please.”

  “I’m fine. I really should stay here and get through these patients.”

  “They’ll be fine. I just want to check your vitals.”

  “I’ve already done so. My blood pressure is 120/80 and my respiratory rate is 18 beats per minute. I’m fine.”

  Her defensiveness was the result of some manifestation of her hormones. Dr. Carrie was eyeballing her curiously, wondering.

  “I’m sorry,” she exhaled. “I’m pregnant.”

  “Well, that explains it.” Dr. Carrie crossed her arms. “I’m sorry for my pushiness.”

  Natalie smiled. “You’re a doctor. It comes with the territory.”

  “How far along are you?”

  “Four months.”

  “You’re just beginning your journey. Congratulations.”

  A damning thought popped into Natalie’s head, resulting in resentful images toward her husband. Rolling her lips in, she quelled the urge to spout her disdain and confusion and all other alarming reactions to the whole damn thing. She gazed up at this Dr. Carrie, pursed her lips, and nodded quaintly. “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. Ask any nurse on this floor...I’m the only doctor who cares about what everyone else is doing.”

  Natalie concluded that this woman was strange - but not in a negative sense. Instead, she possessed the type of peculiarity that may someone want to figure out exactly what made her that way. The acute glare in her eye, her sharpened posture, her pointy nose and pursed pink lips.

  Something.

  “And I’m sorry. I’m not normally this standoffish. Rough morning. I’m Natalie Greene. My job title says ‘Clinical Analyst’, but I do a little bit of everything.”

  “Yes.” She giggled. “I heard Nurse Sheffield runs a tight shift.”

  “Something like that.” Natalie stood to her feet. “I don’t think she likes me very much. But, for some reason, I don’t really care.”

  “That’s the right attitude to have. I’m about to make a coffee run, Natalie Greene, would you like to join me?”

  And that was that.

  Suddenly, Natalie and Dr. Carrie were sharing their thoughts during lunch breaks and such. But Natalie kept the more detailed aspects of her life to herself; it would be far more difficult to explain her white husband and the unwarranted resentment she felt toward him...and the unborn baby. Or why she often rose in an ice cold sweat in the middle of the night with thoughts of taking off running from it all.

  Running away. What kind of purpose would that serve, exactly? And who the hell was she without Brandon Greene?

  She kept all conversations with Dr. Carrie light for the sake of her sanity. There was no sense in dragging an innocent bystander into the shit-storm of her tarrying thoughts.

  Dr. Carrie even allowed her to shadow on a couple of rotations a week.

  “I get a vibe from you,” she said once. “I don’t know what it is about you. But you seem to...understand.”

  And maybe she did.

  THERE WAS SOMETHING CURIOUS ABOUT MATEO FONSECA. He was a little thing, really. No bigger than the stack of teddy bears beside his bed. And his ochre-colored skin gave him an ethereal glow, prompting Natalie to stare at him far longer than she should have.

  Dr. Carrie mulled over his chart with a nurse, noting changes and adjusting the Plan of Care accordingly.

  But Mateo was sick. Very sick. Almost terminally so.

  And a dark gray shadow of sadness hovered over him, and Natalie furrowed her brows at it, noticing it keenly, feeling attune to it.

  Dr. Carrie loomed over Mateo one night and smiled. “You’re looking much better, Mattie. How are you feeling today?”

  He simply bounced his shoulders up and down.

  He didn’t speak a word of English - either because he didn’t want to or simply couldn’t. His mother, Paz, brought him over Bogota a couple months prior, to escape a shitty family and an abusive husband. They’d had financial help from some wealthy American benefactor, but no one spoke of who. And as a result of shifty transcontinental travel, poor healthcare practices, and low income origins, eight-year-old Mateo was on his way to an early grave.

  Dr. Carrie then leaned in to murmur something in the nurse’s ear. “Can we get a translator in here?”

  The nurse nodded in compliance. “Of course, Dr. Meyer. Be right back.”

  “Thank you, Grace.”

  Mateo started to sing a Spanish children’s lullaby. He hummed it at first, playing with its melodies and such, then opened his mouth to sing it out. He was smiling.

  And maybe she heard her papa’s voice. The song sounded familiar. She imagined her papa smiling, too, singing her to sleep.

  She closed her eyes.

  Feeling kinship toward an eight-year-old boy whose native language didn’t match hers, did something more than she thought it would.

  She became so enraptured that the moment she took a step forward, Nurse Grace tugged on her arm a little. “He needs his rest. You should go finish up his paperwork. I’m going to go downstairs and grab a cup of coffee. If Dr. Meyer returns before I get back, let her know, will you?”

  Natalie nodded compliantly and stepped out of the room.

  She then attempted to come up with something to explain why she woul
d be coming home late that night. Succumbing to the quiet of the hospital corridor, she couldn’t think of a place she’d rather be. She felt purposeful there; okay, maybe not. But she liked the illusion she’d drawn up in her head. They liked her there, too. The nurses and the residents. Her presence tempered the edge that hospitals might bring. And the kids liked her well enough, too. She’d teeter in and out of the rooms, make faces at the kids, exude passing, humorous remarks to the parents, in order to soothe the sting of watching their children in such a state.

  Such a loss seemed real, there; almost fully tangible. Natalie often held her belly at the thought of it, quelling the fear, feeling overly protective.

  The baby was slowly becoming part of her identity.

  BRANDON CALLED HER AROUND EIGHT. She was sitting at an empty nurses’ station, twiddling her thumbs.

  “I’m home. And you’re not. What’s wrong with this picture?”

  It was true; he had been working a little bit more lately. His late nights were the result of new projects, bigger, more expensive and persnickety clients...assholes, really.

  But her Brandon always kept a level head...astonishingly enough.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She tried for her sweetest voice. “I just went for a drive. Needed the fresh air. I’ll be back soon. Do you want me to pick you something up for dinner?”

  “Only if you want. I really just want you here.”

  “Your wish will be granted soon, baby, I promise.”

  She ended the call and stowed her phone before he had a chance to persuade her further.

  Then, she heard something. It was subtle at first. Then, grew louder. Coughing, maybe. Or gagging. She walked toward the sound. She realized it was coming from Mateo’s room.

  Her initial reaction was to page a nurse or doctor, but no one was around.

  Bizarre.

  She entered the room to find him grasping at his throat. Immediately struck with fear and debilitating empathy, she ran to his bedside, pouring through a list of words in her head as the child gazed up at her desperately.

  She started to utter a few words in English; frantic and disjointed. Then she closed her eyes, swallowed thickly and exhaled deeply. She tried again, in Spanish this time, placing a hand to the boy’s head to temper him. Mateo breathed tensely, but looked toward her, searching for guidance.

  She trampled through a step by step process in her head, checking his vitals, eyes flickering from the monitor, back into his. And she repeated, “cálmate, pequeña, que va a estar bien...”

  The little boy would nod, and she’d dig around for instruments in which she remembered the doctor using. Then, she ruminated through a series of words in the textbooks she studied on her breaks in college, long before she ever accepted the invitation to become a medical student at Duke University.

  She eventually got his breathing under control. “Gran trabajo, pequeña, eres tan valiente.”

  And the little boy smiled. She had the audacity to lean down and kiss his forehead.

  She was able to duck out just as Nurse Grace returned to her post. Mateo smiled, veiling the heady secret.

  And Natalie drove home that evening, gripping her wheel tightly, basking in silent exuberance, thanking God that her sole purpose for living had returned to her once again.

  MELEE

  BRANDON

  HE’D BEEN NEGLECTING HER LATELY AND HE KNEW IT. So he had to make it right. Somewhere along the way, they weren’t Brandon and Natalie anymore. She barely looked at him when he pressed his lips into her cheek. She no longer called him “Brandy”, no longer stroked the top of his head at the end of a long day, humming till he succumbed to his own exhaustion. They no longer took baths together, laughed together, watched movies together.

  There was an entity between them, swelling and angry, threatening unfathomable eruption.

  He had to do something.

  He left a meeting early to grab a cup of coffee at the café down the block. Perched against one of the barstools, he reached into his coat pocket for his phone and dialed his wife’s numbers.

  In the interim, he thought of what he’d say to win back her favor. They weren’t necessarily in a rut, were they? They were still having sex, she still allowed him to see her naked, they still kissed from time to time.

  This wasn’t a prolonged argument, right?

  “Tallie,” he’d say. “I just wanted to call and tell you ‘I love you’…”

  “I love you, too, Brandy,’” she’d reply. “I never stopped…”

  “Good,” he’d say. “Remind yourself of that all day…and then when I come home, I’ll make love to you the way you deserve…”

  But she didn’t answer.

  He tried her number again, thinking that she’d either gone down to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things for dinner or she’d drifted off to sleep.

  “Let me make dinner for you tonight,” he’d say. “Just sit down and let me take care of you the way you’ve always taken care of me…”

  She didn’t answer the second time around. Feigning away from paranoia, he finished his cup and returned to his desk, resolved to call her again in an hour.

  Before he did so, his mother called him, while the assistant art director, Phoebe, crouched on his desk with new prototypes.

  “Hi, Brandon, are you busy?” she asked him.

  “Sort of, but I can spare a few moments…what’s up?”

  Phoebe, taking a cue from his tone, quietly exited his office. He smiled.

  “I just wanted to call and catch up…nothing more…”

  Stifling the urge to shuffle his mother off of the phone, he realized that it had been almost a month since he’d actually had a decent conversation with. Resolved to his own heart, he leaned back in his leather chair, crossed his arms at his broad chest and answered, “How are you, mom?”

  “I’m good, son,” she replied with a sigh. “Your father and I are trying to pick out a place to eat for dinner…you know how indecisive he and I can be…”

  He chuckled. “Yea, I remember…how’s the museum?”

  “Oh, you know Saratoga…nothing changes here…probably won’t for another hundred years…”

  “I bet…”

  “How’s your wife? How’s Natalie? How’s the pregnancy holding up?”

  What a rare moment it was that Martha Greene asked about his unborn child in such a placid manner. He fought the urge to indulge this moment.

  “She’s fine,” he replied calmly. “She gets a little cranky, but she’s always been stubborn. The random bouts of tears still throws me for a loop from time to time, but overall she’s fine.”

  “Has she made any friends? I hate to think that she’s all alone in that quiet house while you’re at work all day…”

  Damn it. He hadn’t thought of it that way. His baby in that house all alone. Damn it, Martha.

  “Brandon, you got quiet…is everything okay?”

  “Yea, I’m sorry, Mom…I have to go…”

  He tersely hung up the phone, grabbed his coat and he was out the door in thirty seconds.

  In minutes he was heading out of downtown, coursing down the main highway, to his baby and the house they’d built together. He suddenly realized what they both needed.

  He scrambled into the house quickly, howling her name like an idiot.

  No answer.

  He tumbled up and down the stairs, searching for her brown face.

  Nothing.

  He reached for his phone again.

  No answer.

  He realized that he was acting foolish, that Natalie was the rational one of their lengthy pair, and that she wasn’t far away.

  The Pacific Northwest was known for its crisp, clean air. She was probably down the street, for a walk.

  But then an hour passed and she hadn’t returned. He sat there, foolishly, drumming through a series of scenarios that didn’t seem to make sense. So he dialed another number, heard three long rings, then the line connect.


  “Hi, sweetie, what’s up?”

  “Where is she?”

  “Well ‘hello’ to you, too—“

  “Asha, where the hell is she?”

  “What do you mean? She has a working cell phone, you know…”

  “When did you last talk to her?”

  “Hmm, about an hour ago, why?”

  “Where is she? I won’t ask you again…”

  “What do you mean? She’s at the hospital…”

  Panic struck his every nerve. He stood to attention on the balls of his feet, blue eyes widened, breath caught in the back of his throat.

  “What?”

  “Why are you yelling? She’s at the hospital. Something called St. Vincent. You know, where she’s been working for a month?”

  “Asha…” he paused, rolled his eyes closed, lips tightening into a thin line. “Tell me you’re kidding…”

  “You mean you didn’t know? Tell me you knew…”

  He hung up the phone.

  He tried to tell himself to calm down. He tried to tell himself to breathe. But something was off – something had shattered. The structured resolve of himself had degenerated into ashes. The wall that’d kept him at bay had tumbled.

  Convincing himself of his anger and unabashed love for his wife, he clamored into his truck and drove off. He thought of a number of ways he could handle this – none of them amounted to much. His blinding ire kept him from thinking straight. He just had to get to her. He had to see her. He had to know that he’d been deceived.

  And what then? Would she apologize? Would she atone her actions? Quit?

  But it’s early, Brandon, he told himself, you’ll be sitting in your car for another hour or two.

  But that was okay. He needed to calm down. He needed to be clear-headed when he looked at his wife again. He ruminated derisive things, irreparable things. He could not control his thoughts. They came toppling out, piece by piece, manic, splintering visions.

  He made his final attempt at calling her. He was given her one more chance to make it right.

  No answer.

  Shutting his eyes tightly, he squeezed his cellular phone between his hands. He was sure he heard the plastic crack beneath the weight of his grasp.