I frown and find my rolling chair, sitting in front of her. I search for the right words in an all too familiar situation.
“Megan, I don’t know what’s going on with you and Stephen, but I know this isn’t the ideal time for a baby.” Tears leak from the corners of her eyes, and she hides her contorted mouth behind her hand. “I also know you will make a great mother, and I’m not saying that just because we’re...” She’s not technically my sister, though that’s how I think of her. I know she understands. “Well, I just want you to know I’m here for you in whatever way you need me to be, okay?”
She nods emphatically and reaches her free hand out to grasp mine. Her fingers are small and fragile-looking, such a sharp contrast to her personality. This is the first time I’ve ever seen her cry.
“No, it isn’t the ideal time, but I want this baby,” she says through her tears. “Even if I have to do it alone.”
“And are you sure you want me to be your doctor? Sometimes it’s easier to work with someone you don’t know.”
She shakes her head. “You’re family, Dylan. I trust you. I wouldn’t even think of anyone else. You’re going to be my doctor, whether you like it or not.”
We both laugh. She wipes away her tears with a knuckle, while I swallow down my own.
“This is going to be hard without Stephen,” she says. “I’m not too proud to admit it. But with you to guide me through it, I feel like I can do this.”
My first instinct is to tell her she does need Stephen, not only because of the baby, but because they’re meant for each other. I bite my tongue, though. What she needs most is nonjudgmental support, and I, of anyone, know what that need feels like.
“I’m going to be right beside you,” I say. “Every step of the way.”
“Thank you,” she whispers. A wrinkle forms in her brow. “Can I ask one favor?”
Still floating on her show of familial love, I say, “Of course. Anything.”
“Can we keep this between us for now?”
I clear my throat, and my fingers slip from hers. I wipe my suddenly sweaty hands on the front of my slacks. It’s a simple enough question, but she has no idea what she’s asking of me. I think of how Cooper will feel if I keep this secret from him. I think of their parents, who have accepted me as one of their own and how I couldn’t stand to disappoint them. I think of Stephen. I think of all the things that could go wrong. I’ve always feared losing a patient, and as doctors, it’s a reality of the job—more so for some specialties than others. I’ve helped many patients through miscarriages, which is never easy, but I haven’t lost a single patient whose eyes I’ve stared into. It’s why I spend so much time at the hospital—to make sure it stays that way. Thankfully, in obstetrics, most of my patients are young and in good health. And for the babies, we have an incredible NICU.
But still, Megan is family. Taking her on as a patient is a whole new level of responsibility.
“Well, there’s doctor-patient confidentiality, so lawfully, I can’t say anything. But surely you want your family to know.”
“I can’t, Dylan. Not yet. You know how Mom is. She’d have a nursery fully stocked before I even got home.”
I smile. It hurts my cheeks.
I know if Stephen knew about the baby, he would move his stuff back into their house, against Megan’s will. He’s never considered himself to be kid-friendly, but he’s an honorable man, and he loves Megan. Once he got used to the idea, I know he’d be an incredible father. I wish I could tell him and bring their family back together. That’s my job. It’s what I do. But there was nothing in my medical training to prepare me for this.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I hear myself say. “Like I said, it’s not my place. As long as you promise to call me anytime, day or night, if you need anything.”
She thrusts her pinky toward me, herself again, and we smile at each other as I take it in my own.
In spite of my fear of ruining the moment, I can’t help but ask, “Did Stephen really do something that makes it impossible for you to forgive him?”
Megan looks at her feet for a long time before she says, “He’s not fighting for me, Dylan. I didn’t want this. When I told him I needed more time with him, all I wanted him to do was say okay and do it. He acts like I expect him to live for nothing but me, but he knows it’s not true. All I want from him is to make me feel like I’m a priority in his life. Stop acting like he’s single and doing whatever the hell he wants without consequence. It isn’t just his life anymore. But he said he couldn’t. They need him too much at the hospital. And then when he’s not at the hospital, he’s out drinking with his friends. Or rock climbing. Sometimes both. I won’t get into the dangers of that.”
I laugh. It’s so Stephen. Megan shakes her head but smiles, too.
She continues, “When I told him we’d put off having a family long enough, he said he wasn’t ready yet. When I told him I was tired of spending so much time alone, he had nothing to say at all. I dragged it out as long as I could, and then I thought, maybe if he realizes he’s going to lose me, he’ll change. I asked him to leave, and instead of saying he would try harder, he left.”
I swallow hard and wonder if that’s how Cooper feels about me—that he’s not a priority in my life. I’ve always thought of Stephen and me as being cut from the same mold, but the thought that I could make Cooper feel this way steals my breath.
There is one difference between Stephen and me: I would never walk away from Cooper willingly. He’s the only thing that keeps me grounded—the only one who sees me for me.
“And now I’m waiting,” Megan says, almost a whisper. “And he’s still not home.”
I rest my hand on her knee. “If that’s all it is, let me talk to him. I know once he hears—”
“No,” she says. “No. Don’t you see? That wouldn’t help anything. I needed to know he was ready to commit to this marriage and this family.” She puts her hands on her belly. “I needed him to choose us and start living like a husband and father. I needed him to be there because he wanted to be there, not because someone gave him instructions, and he followed them. Definitely not because he feels obligated. All he was thinking about was what he needed, but relationships are about putting the people you love first sometimes.”
I open my mouth to argue more—which point, I’m not sure—but I find I have nothing left to say.
“You’re lucky,” she says after a long silence. “Cooper loves you so much. He would never let you leave him. He would fight for you until his dying breath.”
I avoid Megan’s eyes and grab the blood pressure cuff to change the focus of the conversation. Because she’s right. Cooper would fight for me. But after everything she’s said today, I wonder if he should. He deserves so much better than me.
I examine Megan, then I get the Doppler wand and squeeze a dollop of jelly onto her exposed belly that is already visibly showing. I run the wand back and forth across her abdomen. It doesn’t take long to find a strong heartbeat. As soon as she hears the swish swish, she opens her mouth to form a little O.
“Oh, wow,” she whispers, and I smile. I hold the wand there, letting her enjoy the moment. Despite my concerns about what happens after this, I enjoy it, too. I’ve heard the first acknowledgment of a growing child inside of hundreds of new mothers, but never from someone I love.
I will take care of her. I will protect all of them.
* * *
Running forty-eight minutes late for date night with Cooper, I burst through the front door of my house, throw my keys on the foyer table and peel off my tennis shoes. I shake the rain from my hair and stumble around Cooper’s Oxfords, where they’re always strewn in the middle of the foyer no matter how many times I ask him to use the shoe rack. The house is alive with him—the scent of garlic and the sound of Coldplay. Cooper’s flavor of romance.<
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“Sorry I’m late,” I yell to him.
I stayed late at the hospital to attend Megan’s ultrasound—she’s almost in the second trimester. How she plans to keep it a secret for much longer, I don’t know, but I can’t think about that tonight. If I do, Cooper will see it written all over my face. Tonight is about him, about us.
“Did you put the clothes in the dryer?” I ask as I dart through the living room. “I’m going to hop in the shower, and then I’m all yours.”
His swift footsteps thrum a rhythm on the hardwood behind me, then his hands grasp my elbows from behind before I reach the bedroom, stopping me with a jolt. I sigh, caught, then lean back into his firm chest.
“All that can wait,” he says. His breath stirs the loose hair around my ear and sends goose bumps down my right side. “It’s time to eat. The noodles are only so forgiving.”
“And are you?” I tease, though the moment the words are out of my mouth, I wish I could take them back, sure I don’t want to know the answer. Thankfully, he seems to be in too good a mood to pick a fight.
“You can make it up to me,” he says.
Cooper turns me around and tilts my head down so he can place a kiss on my forehead. Even after all this time, my heart still flutters every time he looks at me like the world really could stop turning for us. Sometimes I wish it would.
“Date night in scrubs?” I ask.
“Date night now,” he says. “You look beautiful in everything. Including mashed-pea-green scrubs.”
I purse my lips and narrow my eyes at him. “You make it hard to say no.”
“That’s the goal.” He kisses me again, on the lips. “C’mon.”
I let Cooper guide me to the dining room table. He pulls my chair out for me, and I sit in it while he returns to the kitchen to serve the fettuccine. He’s already showered and dressed in a pair of jeans, barefoot, a white T-shirt covered shamelessly by a blue-and-white-striped apron. He doesn’t find this at all unusual, having been raised by an apron-wearing father. The apron-wearers are the good ones, I’ve decided.
“You’re cute,” I say from where I sit formally at the table, hands in my lap. He puts on a sultry half smile, never looking up as he ladles Alfredo sauce over each plate.
Cooper ducks out of his apron, lets out a deep breath and pats down his pockets, including the nonexistent one on the front of his T-shirt. He joins me at the table with the plates and a bottle of red wine.
“Are you okay?” I ask as he fills our glasses. He doesn’t quite meet my gaze.
“Of course,” he says. His eyes shift away almost imperceptibly when he says it, but I’ve loved this man for nine years. I notice.
“I really am sorry for being late,” I say. If I could tell him why, I know he’d understand. But I can’t.
“Don’t worry about it. Seriously.”
It’s quiet as we take our first bites. Date night is something we started after we moved into our first apartment. The four years of med school were busy for both of us, and Cooper, having always been more knowledgeable about how relationships are supposed to work, pointed out that studying next to each other in bed wasn’t exactly considered quality time. Happy to follow his lead, I agreed to monthly dates, though I wasn’t sure how we’d find the time. We did. In fact, it was easier back then. It’s been months since Cooper and I have blocked out work and family and other responsibilities for even an hour, and as I watch him suck a noodle into his mouth, the pain of missing him blooms in the center of my chest.
Cooper sets his fork down on his plate and rests his hand on my knee under the table. “Dylan,” he says softly, just as my phone rings, a shocking buzz of vibration against the glass table. We both lean forward to look at the caller ID. It’s the hospital. I glance at Cooper, then set down my own fork and pick it up. Cooper leans back in his chair, his face instantly hard.
“Cooper,” I say, beseechingly.
“You promised,” he says, and nothing else. He doesn’t need to say another word, because we both know this is our life.
He sits up again and sighs.
“Go ahead,” he says and motions toward my phone.
I excuse myself and take the call in the office, out of earshot of Cooper. After I forgive a mistaken labor and delivery nurse for not calling the on-call doctor, I breathe a sigh of relief and return to the dining room table, where Cooper’s pasta sits untouched since I left. The CD must have ended because the only sound I hear is the echo of my phone ringing in my ears.
“It was nothing. I’m sorry,” I mumble and hate the taste of the last word in my mouth. But I see the effort Cooper puts into smiling and into erasing the last five minutes of the night, so I try to do the same.
“There was something you wanted to talk about?” I ask as I sit and take another bite of dinner. I no longer have an appetite, but I’ll be damned if I don’t eat every last bite in restitution.
“Yes,” he says after a moment. He touches his absent breast pocket again. “I’m really proud of you. You know that, right?”
“I know,” I say. I’ve always known. It means a lot to hear him say it anyway. “Thank you.”
“And I just keep thinking about our conversation before. About focusing more on us.”
I look down. My breathing grows shallow. I wouldn’t exactly call what we had a conversation. Cooper expressed his desires and I avoided responding to them. I know where he’s going with this, and I can’t pretend to be asleep this time.
“Yes,” I whisper. When I look back up, I recognize the determined crease in his brow as he grabs my hand.
“I don’t want to wait anymore,” he says, then pauses to take a deep breath. I try for one of my own, but it gets caught in my throat. He slides off the dining room chair onto his knee. He looks up at me from beneath the strands of hair that stubbornly fall over his forehead. His eyes are bright and alive with anticipation—the opposite of my heart, folding in on itself and withdrawing. No, no, no...
“You know I’ve wanted to marry you since the night I met you,” he says, “but I wanted to wait until you were ready. I know this isn’t the perfect time, but like my sister once told us, there’s never going to be a right time. We just have to make the time. You’re beautiful and smart and caring, Dylan, and you’re everything I never knew I could have in a partner. If you’ll have me, I’d be so proud to call you my wife.”
I’ve stopped breathing, and I can’t seem to start again.
What is wrong with me?
I love this man and he loves me.
I do want to spend the rest of my life with him—what does it matter if we get engaged right now or in five years? It all amounts to the same thing. But thinking of the weight that comes with a small ring and another big promise makes my hands shake.
How can we promise forever? It’s a guarantee neither one of us can make.
I bring my hand up to cover my eyes, so I can’t see Cooper and he can’t see me. It’s then that the real reason I won’t commit to Cooper hits me: What right do I have to do what Abby will never get to do? What do I know about creating a family when mine is so broken?
The thoughts in my head are spinning so fast I can’t pin down any one of them except, He’ll never forgive me for this.
I let my hand fall to my lap and force myself to look at him. “Cooper, can we please just not do this right now? Not yet? You know I want to but...”
But I have to do something to make up for what happened to Abby. I’ll never feel worthy of his love or anyone else’s until I do.
“Babe,” he says, his voice still gentle, knowing this is a difficult subject for me even if he doesn’t know why. He’s always known better than me what I want and what I need; when I need space and when I need to be pushed. But not this time. This time it’s an impossible situation—he just doesn’t see it yet.
“I know you’re scared, but we love each other. What could be more important than that? We’ve already been together for nine years. We have a house together. What’s really going to change besides your last name and the fact that we can start making plans for the rest of our lives together?”
“Exactly,” I say, latching on to his words. “What’s going to change if we wait another year...or two...”
His head falls and he clears his throat. He’s losing patience with me.
“Dylan,” he says with a dry laugh, “you’re kind of killing my confidence here. You say you love me, but people who love each other, they get married and have kids and pick out snobby preschools together. That’s what they do.”
“You know I love you,” I say, my voice coming back strong.
“Do you?” he asks, all signs of laughter gone. His eyes pierce straight through my heart, shattering me. “Prove it.”
“Cooper, I...I’m just too focused on my career to be a good wife to you, and that’s what you deserve. You deserve to have a wife who will be good to you, and I want to be her one day.” Tears spring to my eyes. It’s not a straight answer, but I know if I don’t give him the answer he wants, it could end us. Us being over will end me.
“Prove it,” he says again, softer but with an intensity that says he’s not going to budge. He would never say it out loud, but the purse of his lips says it all: it’s an engagement or it’s over. “Dylan,” he presses.
With my heartbeat thrumming in my ears, I stumble over words I don’t hear myself say, I pull my hand from his grip, and suddenly I’m outside with the rain landing on my cheeks. Without a ring.
I wander the streets, wet and muddy and in a daze until the storm clears, like a sign. Finally, I find my way home, but when I call out for Cooper, he doesn’t answer. I check the bedroom, the guest room, the backyard. I check the garage. Cooper’s car is gone. With my hands shaking so badly I almost can’t unlock my phone, I press Cooper’s name on my speed dial. It rings two times and goes to voice mail. I hang up and let my phone fall to the counter.
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