Here to Stay

by Suanne Laqueur

  He was out of bed and moving to her. Warm, stringent liquid ran down her legs, making a puddle on the rug and spreading onto the hardwood floor. Clear at first. And then tinged pink. Then red.

  “Oh God,” Daisy said. “What’s happening?”

  DAISY LAY ON A bed in an exam room of the ER, her bared belly glistening with gel. Erik sat in a chair next to her. The sonogram technician stared at her hands. Frozen on the monitor in black and white was the baby. Whole. Perfect.

  “Are you sure?” Daisy said again. “He was moving all day. Moving and kicking.”

  “I’m sorry,” the technician whispered. “Something must be wrong with the machine. Let me get someone.”

  She got a lot of someones. The attending doctor came in, followed by a social worker and a pediatric nurse. The room filled with an ominous, heavy energy as the doctor pulled on gloves and set the ultrasound wand down on Daisy’s stomach again. The image on the screen morphed in and out of view. Settled back into focus and held still. Erik’s eyes volleyed back and forth, looking from one grim expression to the next, waiting for an answer that wasn’t coming.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “What is happening?”

  “Is there someone we can call for you?” the social worker asked.

  Erik looked at her as if she were speaking another language. “We called you,” he said stupidly.

  “Madame Fiskare,” the doctor said. Tall and black, he looked no more than nineteen in Erik’s bewildered eyes. His dark blue scrubs barely reaching his ankles. Gangly arms and knobby wrists emerging from a too-short white coat. A strong accent garbled his French into a soup as he said, “Je suis désolé. Je ne peux pas trouver un battement.”

  “Speak English,” Erik said, his voice cracking through the dense air.

  The doctor’s high cheekbones winced. “I cannot find a heartbeat, sir. I’m sorry.”

  “No,” Daisy said, reaching fingers toward the screen. “No, he’s right there. He’s right there. He was here all day. I felt him.”

  Erik stood up and put his arms around her. She fought through them, actually slapped one of his hands away.

  “You’re wrong,” Daisy said.

  Erik turned his head, looked at the wall and wished to disappear.

  “He’s right there,” she said.

  “Madame Fiskare,” the doctor said. “I am truly sorry. Under different circumstances, I could let you go home and take your time with the decision. But look here. Please. The sonogram shows the placenta is beginning to detach. You are running a fever and this can only get more critical.”

  “What are you saying?” Erik said, turning around, unable to grasp what this kid was telling them. “I don’t understand.”

  The nurse moved closer to the bed and took Daisy’s hand in both of hers. “You’re going to have your baby,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly. Her soft voice full of kindness.

  She looked at Erik. “We’re going to put her into labor. She has to deliver.”

  “But the baby is…” And finally it clicked. His head spun as realizations crashed one into the other like a multi-car pileup on the freeway. It wasn’t going to disappear, be absorbed back into Daisy’s body or bleed quietly out of her. It wouldn’t just go away. It was a thirty-week pregnancy. It was a baby. The baby was dead.

  And Daisy had to bring him out.

  She has to deliver stillborn.

  “I can’t.” Daisy was crying into her hands. “I want my mother,” she said, her voice squeezing through her fingers. “I want my mother. I can’t do this without my mother.”

  “Where is she?” the doctor said.

  “Pennsylvania,” Erik said, feeling he might throw up. He kicked one toe hard into his other calf, sending a bolt of pain up the back of his leg. He caught the sensation in his teeth and bit down.

  Get. It. Together.

  The nurse had Daisy’s face in her hands. “My name’s Lee,” she said. “I’m going to stay with you. I’ll help you have your baby.” Lee looked at Erik, pale beneath her copper-colored freckles but her eyes were clear and unblinking. “I will help you do this,” she said.

  Erik pushed all his feeling into a far room and slammed a door on it.

  Feel nothing, he thought. You will feel nothing.

  He gathered Daisy up in his arms, gathered his strength and his wits. Over the top of Daisy’s head he looked at the black doctor, then back at freckle-faced Lee. “Tell me what’s going to happen.”

  They began to tell him, but he was only half-listening. From within his heart, he heard fists pounding on a door as the cowering ball of emotions yelled for him.

  You left us here once, they cried. We grew big and hairy in the dark. We became monsters and you thought we forgot about you. We don’t forget. Slam the door hard. We’ll still be in here. Remember.

  He remembered.

  He cracked the door, let the hallway light shine a little inside.

  He promised to come back and feel it later.

  FOR ALL HIS YOUTHFUL and gangly appearance, Dr. N’Dour, the Senegalese resident, was poised and attentive. He waved nurses away and set Daisy’s IV port himself. His giant hands were deft and sure, his thick French soft and hypnotic. The sonorous voice seemed to fold Daisy into an envelope of shocked calm. Her weeping hushed into chopped, hitching breaths and her swollen, stunned eyes went far away.

  While they were getting Daisy settled and prepped in a room on the maternity ward, Erik stepped into the hall with his phone. It was one in the morning now. People needed to be woken up.

  Will’s cell rang twice. A scrape and scrabble and a thick inhale of half-asleep breath. “Hey…”

  Erik opened his mouth and tried. Failed.

  “Fish?”

  Erik tried again. “The baby died,” he said, a hand over his face, screening the world away.

  “What?” Will said, his voice coming into focus.

  “We lost him.”

  “What the f— Where are you?”

  “At the hospital.”

  “Oh my God. Fish, what happened?”

  “I don’t know. She started running a fever. Her water broke. They couldn’t get a heartbeat. He’s gone.”

  “Jesus fuck, are you kid— Fish, I’m so sorry.”

  “They’re putting her into labor. She’s going to deliver in the next few hours.”

  “Oh God. Fish, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “She has to deliver stillborn.” His voice was rising up and getting away from him. He swallowed hard, pulled a long breath through his nose to keep it all back.

  “Where are you?” Will said, sounding both awake and on his feet. “SJ Regional?”

  “Yeah, I—”

  “I’m leaving now,” Will said. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “You don’t—”

  “Shut up. I’m coming.” And the line went dead.

  Knowing Will was coming stuck to him like a bit of armor. It stiffened his spine for the next two calls.

  My biggest fear about parenthood was getting the call, he thought, staring at his phone display. Instead, I’m making it.

  Irony, go fuck yourself.

  He woke up Joe first, then Christine, using variations of the same words: “We lost the baby. You need to come.”

  The phone grew hot in his hand as the shock rebounded over the line. Hearts shattering into pieces hundreds of miles away. Followed by the saddling up. The circling of the wagons. Torches and drums in the distance. The cavalry on the move.

  “We’re on the way,” Joe said. “We love you.”

  “I’m coming,” Christine said. “I love you.”

  It couldn’t be made easy, but the staff turned themselves inside out to make it as peaceful as possible. Daisy’s room was far away from the other delivery suites, and apparently some cryptic signal or sign was at the door, indicating to the ward a stillbirth was happening. Everyone who came in treated them with the utmost respect and compassion.

  They
gave Daisy an epidural for the physical pain, and Fentanyl to take the edge off the mental pain. They turned off the drugs that were meant to stop contractions, and started drugs to precipitate them. Then they had nothing to do but wait.

  Daisy drifted in and out of sleep, occasionally rambling under her breath. Snippets of conversations with no one. Sound bites from her stream of consciousness.

  “And I’m done now,” she said.

  “It’s the Fentanyl,” Lee said. “You have no filter when you’re on that stuff. And the fever isn’t helping either.”

  “I’m sorry about David,” Daisy mumbled.

  Erik drew back a little. Her eyes were closed and her face was expressionless, but she said it. It slipped past the filter.

  Did it still haunt her?

  He laid his hand on her forehead. “It was long ago,” he whispered. “I forgave you long ago for that, Dais.”

  A nurse came in and said Erik had a friend in the waiting room. Lee nodded at him and drew her chair a fraction of an inch closer to the bed, indicating she was on watch.

  Sandy-eyed with fatigue, muscles aching, Erik walked the short hall down to the waiting area. Will stood up from the couch and came striding to meet him. His arms reached and Erik fell into them.

  “Give it here,” Will said, holding him tight, a hand on Erik’s head. “Give it to me. I’ll hold it.”

  Erik let go, let the load slip off his shoulders. He shoved it all at Will and let him take it.

  “I’m sorry,” Will said.

  “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “I know. Sit down and don’t do anything right now.”

  “Where’s Lucky?”

  “She’s waiting for the nanny to come and then she’ll be here. You tell Dais she’s coming. Now come on, sit down. Shut your eyes.”

  Erik did, and was surprised when the edges of his mind blurred out and he snoozed briefly. A quick catnap with Will standing guard. His phone buzzed in his pocket. Once. Twice. With a low cry he sat up, his body electric with adrenaline.

  “It’s all right,” Will said. “You were out fifteen minutes. That’s all.”

  Erik shook his head hard.

  “A nurse came by,” Will said, a soothing hand on Erik’s shoulder. “Said Dais is still asleep. You didn’t miss anything. I’ll get you a soda.” Will stood up and went to the vending machines, reaching in his back pocket for his wallet.

  Erik checked his phone. It was his brother texting.

  Mom, me and Fred will be on a 6AM flight. We’re coming. I’m so fucking sorry. Whatever I can give you, it’s yours. Yesterday.

  Erik started to text that Pete didn’t need to come. Then he backspaced all the letters out and typed, Thanks. I got nothing. Bring everything.

  I will. You don’t fall apart until I get there. Hear me?

  I hear you.

  “I let myself into your house and threw some shit together,” Will said, kicking a backpack by the leg of the chair. “Some clothes, your phone chargers. I grabbed both toothbrushes on the sink and then just stuffed your whole shaving kit in there. Lucky can bring whatever else you need.”

  “Thanks.”

  Will twisted the cap off the soda bottle and handed it over. “Who do you need me to call? Give me numbers. I’ll take care of it later in the morning.”

  Primed with caffeine, Erik scrolled through his contacts and calendar. “I had a dentist appointment tomorrow, cancel that. Car was supposed to go in for an oil change. You need to call the garage for me…”

  Will wrote down the numbers. “What else?”

  “Feed the cat at some point.” Erik exhaled and ran a hand through his hair. “The Biancos are coming. And my mom and Fred. They’ll need to be picked up.”

  “I’ll do it. Don’t give it another thought. I’ll take care of everything.”

  “And call Mike Pettitte for me.”

  “Your cousin? Sure. I’ll call him first.”

  Erik almost asked why, then realized of course, because Mike was family.

  Erik closed his eyes. More wagons appeared on the southern horizon. Clayton would be woken up. Mike would know soon. He’d call Trudy and Kirsten and then tell the MacIntyres. By tomorrow Vivian would know. Erik looked to the rear of the gathering forces, beyond the village to the cemetery. The stones turned toward him, attentive, supportive, reaching ghostly hands back to him. The clean white grave of Beatrice Klara sharp in his mind. Elsa and Xandro in the shadow of the pine trees. The young soldier Bjorn under bronze. Lost children.

  Lost fish.

  We’re here. We feel terrible. These things happen and they are terrible things to bear. We bore them. We know. We’re here.

  You’re not alone. You found your tribe. You will survive this.

  “I can’t,” he whispered, knowing he could, but wishing with every fiber of his being he didn’t have to.

  “You can,” Will said. “You don’t have to do it well. You just have to do it.”

  “All right,” Erik said, standing up. He held out his hands to Will. “Give it back.”

  Will stood up and made a pouring gesture into Erik’s palms. Then he hugged tight and kissed Erik’s head. “I love you,” he said. “I’ll be here the whole time.”

  Erik sank his teeth into that. Fists and jaw clenched, shoulders set, he nodded against the broad hard plain of Will’s chest. Then he pulled free and went back to Daisy.

  “WHAT WILL HE LOOK like?” Erik asked, afraid he would recoil.

  Lee touched his arm. “Like a baby. He’ll be beautiful to you. He won’t be a monster or an alien, I promise. You can hold him. Bathe him. Dress him. As long as you want. You’ll have complete privacy and complete freedom. We’re here to make you as comfortable as possible.”

  He looked away from her and fought the urge to throw off her touch. No comfort could be found here. Nothing was private or free. Who did Lee think she was, telling him he’d hold a dead baby and find it beautiful? That he could dress it up like a doll and pretend everything was fine?

  Somebody help me, he thought. He couldn’t see the wagons coming. Will’s embrace had long slid off his back and he was exposed to the enemy and alone.

  Daisy said something under her breath. Her fingernails drew along her skin. Slower. Deeper. Pink, raised welts began to emerge on the inside of her forearm.

  “Stop,” Erik whispered, putting his hand on top of hers. “Don’t hurt yourself. It’s not your fault.”

  He held her tight, willing to do anything—anything to get her out of this. If it meant lying down and letting someone sledgehammer his legs, he’d do it.

  Leave her alone. She’s been through enough.

  “He shot the glass,” Daisy said, her head moving side to side, her eyelids fluttering.

  “I know,” he said against her hair. “I know, honey. It wasn’t your fault.”

  It’s never anyone’s fault.

  It’s just fucking life coming in to backhand me as soon as I lean into a moment.

  It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Mike Pettitte was right. This was against the natural order of the world and it was offensive. Mike would be livid when he heard the news. Primed with outrage and justice, he’d tear this place apart and make it all right again.

  Except he couldn’t.

  Nobody could make this right.

  Erik shut his hot wet, eyes and turned his face into the pillows above Daisy’s head. His mind swirling with fatigue, his back and legs aching. Weak, but resolute, he stood in the arched doorways of his beloved cathedral, armed with nothing but his bare hands.

  Fuck all of you. I hate your fucking guts. Get out of here and leave me and my wife the fuck alone.

  He brought Daisy’s hand with its crooked fingers and ragged nails up to his mouth. He closed his teeth on Astrid’s diamond and bit.

  Help me, he thought. Somebody help me.

  The Fentanyl wore off as the contractions grew more intense. Daisy was down from the high and reeling in reality, fighting
against her body, fighting the inevitable.

  “I can’t do this,” she said. “Don’t make me do this.”

  “You have to,” Lee said. “No one else can do it. You can and you will.”

  “All right, Dézi, you’re going to push now,” Dr. N’Dour said.

  She was shaking her head, her voice swelling like a balloon. “I can’t. I need my mother. I can’t. I can’t do this.” Her voice stretched thin until it was a hoarse squeal.

  “Dais,” Erik took her face in his hands. “Look at me.”

  “Don’t make me,” she said.

  “Look at me,” he said. “Look only at me.”

  Her eyes settled on his. Then they settled into his. She exhaled.

  “Only me,” he said. “Remember?”

  Her chin rose and fell.

  “You can do this,” he said. “You can do it for me.”

  She nodded again, biting her lips.

  “Will you do this for me?”

  Her eyes closed then opened. No green was in their depths as she breathed in through her nose and whispered, “Yes.”

  “I want to see him,” Erik said. “Let him come out so I can see him.”

  She touched his face. “All right.” She pulled in her breath again and her expression settled into the cold, determined look of a soldier. “All right,” she said, louder, sitting up.

  “You are a mother now,” Lee said, helping her. “You’re part of a great chain: you, your mother and grandmother and great-grandmother. They’re all with you now, Daisy. They’ll help you.”

  It took three sets of three pushes and the baby crowned. Erik held Daisy the whole time, his face close by hers.

  “I love you so much,” he said. “I swear I’ve never loved you more.”

  Resting between contractions, she turned her face into his neck, breathing hard.

  “You’re so strong,” he said, his heart full of pain and pride. “You’re the bravest person I know.”

  “It’s almost over,” Lee said, giving her some ice to chew. “You’re doing beautifully.”

  “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen you do,” Erik said through his teeth. “Ever. This is the most important thing you have ever done.”

  “One more push, Dézi,” N’Dour said.

  “You got this,” Erik said, sliding his arm under her shoulder blades. Her head dragged over his forearm and then lifted. Her eyes blazed like steel.