The Rescue Doc's Christmas Miracle

by Amalie Berlin

  Neither would the ones for children, which were honestly more gag-inducing.

  Water wouldn’t stay down.

  Big no to milk. No to broth. Juices came straight from the devil. And she still had a crate of untouched other beverages she’d had delivered this morning, and which she’d try to pour down her gullet as soon as she’d got her nerve back up, along with the corresponding energy required to haul herself fifteen feet from her sofa to the kitchen island.

  The one bright spot of her day had been not vomiting on the delivery boy. She may have tipped him enough to pay his rent—she couldn’t be sure what she’d handed him at this point—but at least she knew he’d come back on future deliveries, rather than avoiding her apartment unless decked out in a hazmat suit.

  She knew enough medicine to know dehydration was winking at her from just around the corner, but she didn’t know at what point all this would become a danger to the baby.

  The doorbell startled her as she reached for the tea she’d yet to sample, and the minuscule amount of fluid her body had been able to replenish in her stomach curdled.

  Over her mostly dry heaving, she heard her name shouted through the door.

  Oh, it was Gabriel. And he sounded like he was planning to beat the door down.

  Would it be easier to let him and just get the door fixed later, or to crawl piteously on her belly across the floor so she could open it first?

  As soon as she stopped heaving for a few seconds, she snatched a clean bucket from the table and slogged to the door. If nothing else, he could see what she looked like when actually sick, for future reference.

  No sooner had she gotten the door open than a fresh round of heaving turned productive and she had to slump on the wall beside the door as she curled over her bucket, and mostly hit her target. Which was at least better than vomiting on Gabriel, the second lucky person she hadn’t vomited on today, but who would’ve at least been less likely to hold it against her than the delivery boy.

  “Good God, Pen. Why didn’t you call me?” Gabriel ignored the anger that had percolated in him all day and stepped over the tiny puddle that had missed the bucket. Scooping up her, along with her bucket, he carried her to the sofa. Although slender, the boneless drape of her body made her feel even more insubstantial than usual.

  He arranged her on the sofa, bucket cradled in her lap, and stood back to get a look at the loft. For perhaps the first time ever when accused of being sick, Penny didn’t offer any lip or any resistance. By the look of her, talking might be too much. Every time she opened her mouth, retching sounds followed.

  “Okay, maybe not called, but you could’ve texted.” He relented, eyed the full glasses and mugs on her coffee table. “None of these wanted to stay down? Just nod or shake your head.”

  She shook her head.

  Yesterday she’d been pale. Today she almost looked dead—all she was missing was that terrible shade of gray.

  “Been going on all day?”

  She nodded again.

  If she’d looked this bad yesterday, he’d have dragged her into the ED and maybe had her admitted.

  “Did it start before you woke up? Did it wake you?”

  She nodded again, then did something so uncharacteristic, he felt for the third time in two days that the world had gone off its proper tilt. She started to cry.

  “I’m not mad,” he said in a rush. Even though he had been angry all day, seeing her like this made his anger feel like something entirely less righteous. And he still had absolutely zero idea how to deal with a crying partner. “Stop that.”

  Okay, maybe not the right thing to say. Should he hug her?

  “It’s okay. We can fix this. Just stop crying. I’ll get some medication delivered. Concentrate on breathing. Everything’s fine. Don’t cry.”

  Fumbling his cell out, he dialed a friend in the hospital. By the time he got the medicine ordered and delivery scheduled, she’d stopped sniffling and started dry heaving again. Which...was a little easier on him, and which he’d feel guilty about later. After he also called a local grocery for ginger and a selection of teas.

  “Gabe...”

  He turned back to her, stepped over a bucket, and eased himself onto the couch beside her. “It’ll be here soon, and will keep you from vomiting, even if it puts you to sleep. I don’t work tomorrow. I’ll stay. Everything will be okay.”

  One thing he made himself not say again: Don’t cry. Even if it was right there in his mouth, bashing against his teeth to get out.

  The look on her face was one of pure misery, but she nodded.

  Seeing her state may have dissipated his irritation, but the frustration still hung around, especially when she weaseled her way under his arm and tucked in beside him so tight he knew she wasn’t just physically miserable. She was scared.

  “Hey...”

  Don’t cry...

  She tilted her head back to look at him, and he found himself squeezing her a little tighter.

  “Don’t worry about any of this. I’ll get it done. Don’t worry about the baby either. It’s still early to worry about this becoming a danger.”

  Her lower lip quivered, but she nodded again.

  “Do you trust me to do what’s best for you both?”

  She nodded again, and the quiver settled down, her eyes becoming more focused, more certain.

  “Then don’t worry. Stress will just make things worse. It’s early days to panic. I know that’s easy to say when I’m not the one vomiting, but still true. I’ll stick around until you’re feeling better. Close your eyes and rest. I’ll take care of it.”

  Still no argument. She couldn’t get closer to him with clothes on, but it somehow made him feel better too, even if her slender frame felt fragile to him at that moment.

  The antiemetic would help. And if it didn’t, they’d visit the ED for IV fluids before dehydration became a massive issue.

  * * *

  “I know you’re trying to be nice...” Penny said from the sofa the next morning, watching Gabriel scramble eggs in her kitchen, and alluding to the night they weren’t supposed to ever mention, and which they still hadn’t really spoken about, even after he’d slung sexual compatibility at her in that long, fraught conversation.

  Gabriel dished the eggs onto one plate, but she knew he’d caught the words he’d said to her that night when he lifted his dark brown gaze to hers. She could almost see him silently working through whether or how to respond, and whether their mutual non-conversation treaty had any bearing.

  “I’m not trying to be nice,” he said finally, quietly, then followed it up with a redirect. “These eggs are for me. I already made you my mom’s cinnamon apple tea, which I see is staying down.”

  Acknowledged, but not deepened. She had no idea what that meant. Was the subject still forbidden? Should it be? She didn’t want him getting back on that marriage thing, even if having him there the past day had been nice. Comforting, even. Which was annoying on another level but, still, she didn’t want to say anything that made him stiffen up again, or start demanding legal documents.

  “It is.” She used the cinnamon stick like an inefficient straw to sip the cider and breakfast tea combination. “It’s good. Really good. Remind me to send her a thank you for raising such a good man.”

  The sudden cocking of his head and the surprise she saw all over him surprised her in return. Was it so surprising that she’d say that? She mentally rewound through the past few days, then the past few weeks. When was the last time she’d said something nice to him?

  She wasn’t mean by nature, but she had to admit that the shock and fear of the past three weeks had perhaps, no, had definitely made her less pleasant than normal. Unless you counted beaning him in the face with a pregnancy test, then it probably had made her completely unpleasant. She just
plain hadn’t been herself, but if they were going to make this work out well for the three of them, she needed to find her way back to her much-preferred vigorous optimism.

  “You’re just saying that because I cleaned up so much vomit the past eighteen hours.”

  “I’m not,” she said, then grinned. “I won’t lie, that didn’t hurt. A good man would do that for an ill friend, right? But, genuinely, it’s nice that you’re here. Comforting. I don’t even really mind having you fuss over me, which is kind of a big deal for me.”

  “You’re a little better today, so I’ve been expecting my marching papers since you’ve managed to stay awake for half an hour without trying to turn yourself inside out.”

  Still deflecting. Did she not sound sincere? Did he just really want to go? The latter thought brought a rush of disappointment that left her staring into her drink for several long seconds.

  “If you want to go, I’ll probably whine, but I won’t stop you.” As if she could. Her only superpower right now was regurgitation. “Do you not believe I want you here?”

  While eating his eggs, he did the courteous thing and stayed in the kitchen, eating at the snack bar on the rear side of the island—where proximity to eggs was less likely to make her sick. “I think you do now, but tomorrow will probably be a different story.”

  She took another sip of her non-alcoholic toddy. The context to her confession mattered, and he should know it. It had been years of work to put that behind her, and she did everything in her power to keep those two versions of herself from intersecting, especially with people she didn’t want thinking less of her or diminishing her capabilities, but the introduction of a child changed that equation. He should know, and not just because it would make clear to him how much she appreciated his care. If their child developed the disease, he should know it was possible ahead of it coming to pass.

  “What do you know about juvenile dermatomyositis?” She asked this quietly, but knew he’d heard her by the pause of his fork.

  After a moment, he went with her direction change. “Rash. Muscle weakness. In adults. Juvenile? I think it starts pretty young. I’d have to refresh my memory for more information. Why do you ask?”

  “I had it.” She shifted on the sofa to sit up straighter, just to remind herself that she could move however she wanted to now. “Autoimmune disease, can be triggered by infection, or not. Usually treated with steroids, but sometimes they don’t work and chemotherapy drugs are required.”

  As she spoke, a frown crept over his handsome face, and although she could still see a pile of eggs on his plate, he put his fork down and swiveled on his stool to look at her. “Do you still require treatment?”

  “I’m one of the lucky twenty percent in full remission.” She hated putting herself into those memories, because there was no distance. Even after a decade-plus years of remission, if she thought about it, she went right back there and all she felt was confinement. “But it ravaged me before they got it under control.”

  Ravaged was the only word she could think of to describe the effects and aftermath. Also, because she didn’t talk about that part of her life. She’d shut it away behind thirty thousand feet of brick wall, and didn’t even like her family to talk about it. That habit left her with a dearth of words to apply, she didn’t even know how to start or if she even needed to describe it. She’d much rather gloss over those details, give him the lowlights, as highlights was a word she couldn’t apply.

  “How bad?”

  “I was in a wheelchair for years,” she said, because getting this word train going was hard. But it actually got a little easier as she kept on. “I had physical therapy every day from six to thirteen to keep my limbs from withering. If I couldn’t get to the rehab center because of vacation or holiday, my parents put me through my paces. As doctors, they knew what could happen and wanted me to have the best shot at a normal body, even without knowing if I would ever recover to use it.”

  “You resented it?” he asked, but there wasn’t any condemnation in his voice. He treated children so he knew how hard it was for them to cope with illness.

  “Sometimes,” she admitted. “You’re going to be one of the lucky ones, they liked to say. I kind of resented that. Actually, I hated that. But they didn’t give up, and didn’t let me give up. I should probably thank them for it every time I see them, now that I fully understand I wasn’t just in the midst of a caging illness but an illness that could’ve been fatal.”

  That wasn’t all of it, that wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg, but she could see him starting to put the pieces together. It was more to make him put the right pieces together that she kept going. “I’m healthy now, but I’ve been smothered by loving caretakers so much, I feel like I’ve used up my lifetime allotment of fuss.”

  “I had no idea.” He abandoned his half-finished plate and came to sit right next to her, his thigh pressed to hers and his arm going immediately around her shoulders.

  Would that simple touch from him always be able to push the tension right out of her? She closed her eyes, tried to make herself focus on all those words she’d said, all the reasons she shouldn’t take the comfort he gave without hesitation.

  “That’s why you refuse to call off when you’re ill?”

  That wasn’t one of the threads she’d hoped he’d pick up on, but she nodded, then pressed closer still. “When I say I don’t mind you taking care of me, you should know that’s a position of dubious honor. I really appreciate you coming over to check on me, and staying. No joke. Thank you. I’m sorry I didn’t call or text to tell you I was sick. It honestly never occurred to me, but I will. From now on.”

  His lips on her forehead brought a shock of need bubbling up inside her. Not for sex, though being close to him pretty much meant it was in the back of her mind all the time, but something like sweetness and sadness mixed together. Like homesickness.

  “I know I’m weird and sometimes kind of wild in reaction to having spent years living my life on the sidelines, and I don’t want that for my...for our child. She, or he, should just get to be whoever she would be without leagues of childhood trauma making her into someone who drives everyone bonkers.” She felt his arm tighten, his lips still lingering on her skin, relaxed now, but no less sweet.

  “You don’t make me crazy.” His lips feathered against her forehead.

  “You’re not selling that line in this house, Jackson.” She leaned back, breaking the chest-aching touch to look him in the eye. “I could pass it on. I don’t know how likely it is, or what it would take. I don’t really know anything about the genetics of the disease, just that it is genetic.”

  “Did they find a cause for your dermatomyositis?”

  “At the time they said it was idiopathic. In my adult life, I’ve done everything possible to not revisit it. I haven’t kept up on the latest findings.”

  He made a sound she couldn’t define, and reached over to retrieve her mug and press it back into her hands. Emergency physician, he had to deal with the problem currently on his plate, and her looming dehydration was it. “Drink half and I’ll let you sleep. I know the medication makes it impossible to stay awake for long periods.”

  Another sip and she started to relax again, really feeling better than yesterday—well enough to push liquids a little more vigorously than sips. At least while she had a man with a mop watching over her.

  “Will you check your medical journals to see what the latest research on JDM is, like the likelihood of passing it on? Does it require two carriers or one? None of my siblings have it.”

  “Drink.”

  She bypassed the cinna-straw and took a big apple-y pull.

  “I’ll read while you’re asleep.”

  “And see if there’s any genetic testing I should have?” Another big drink.

  “Okay, drink slower.” He urged the mug
back down after her second big gulp. “You’ve finished half. You can stop if you want to.”

  She relented for the moment, at least on the drinking front. “The testing?”

  “I’ll see what I can find out. I can always call one of the pediatric specialists at Mercy if I need to.”

  Satisfied, she went back to the drink. “I think I can finish it.”

  “Don’t make yourself sick, or we’ll have to start all over.”

  “It tastes good.”

  He stopped arguing, but the softness in his eyes when he looked at her said he wasn’t yet unconcerned. “Have you made an appointment with your OB?”

  “No, but I only officially knew I needed to for two days, and yesterday I spent the whole day wondering if I should strap the bucket around my neck or install a headrest on the toilet seat.”

  That got a little smile from him, and then a little distance. He moved away and sat forward, as if preparing to flee. “Fair enough. Want me to do that while you’re asleep?”

  Then he was up, and she missed not only the heat of him but the comfort that had seeped into her from the brief cuddle, and especially from that utterly chaste kiss. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had kissed her head like that, like she was the sweetest thing in the world.

  Which could’ve been a trick. It’d be a good one. Marry me, I’m a forehead-kisser. Not a bad line of argument, if she didn’t have more than a decade of watching her parents implode to know how far from marriage she wanted to stay.

  She mumbled the doctor’s name and slid down into the nest she’d been living in on the couch since yesterday, when what she really wanted was to ask him to lie down with her. If she closed her eyes, she could still remember the way his strong, steady heart had thudded beneath her cheek when he’d held her as they’d come down from another sweaty tumble.

  That wasn’t the relationship they had now, though, so she tugged her blanket over her and didn’t stop until it was snugged up to her chin, but the only warmth she felt was in the sofa cushions beneath her where he’d been sitting.