* * * * *
That night, Luke had a dream. He dreamt that he was at Taylor Park at night, and the wind was blowing furiously, whipping his hair. He had to squeeze his eyes shut to keep out loose sand.
The wind became stronger, pelting him from all sides. It gusted at him in a way that ordinary wind does not. It felt angry to him, even vengeful. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something emerge from the bushes. An oval shape, almost like a raindrop. Quickly, it disappeared.
When the wind finally subsided, Luke took a good look around him.
The cherry blossom tree loomed high above him, but instead of flourishing, the tree was rotting away. The cherry blossoms became a sickly decaying brown, and withered as soon as they hit the ground.
The putrid stench flooded Luke’s nose and he put his hands to his nose to keep from gagging. One blossom hit his face, and started to burn.
He tried to rip it off, but it latched on, stinging him.
When he finally managed to pry it off, Luke inspected the cherry blossom. Instead of the usual white, it was now a charred black.
* * * * *
Chapter 7
Three months later…
On a beautiful summer day, Luke picked up Alyssa from work to go to Vancouver General Hospital for an obstetric ultrasound. It was sunny, but not too hot. The breeze was light and refreshing.
The sun shone down on their convertible as they cruised along. Luke snuck a peek at her when they stopped at a red light. She was in a pretty white summer dress. And her pregnancy was starting to show.
They arrived at the hospital, and were escorted to a private room.
Alyssa sat down on the examination table as Luke held her hand.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Luke said.
“Yeah,” she said, although she sounded uncertain. “Of course it will.”
She patted her own stomach. “Everything will be alright, my little girl. Our little girl,” she said, eying Luke. “We’ll love you as soon as you come out of me. In fact, we love you right now, even when you’re still in there.”
So she wasn’t kidding about talking to the child, Luke thought.
He was in awe of the love that Alyssa was so capable of giving, both to himself and to the baby.
There was a knock on the door and the obstetrician came in. The doctor was old, with white hair and old-man glasses. He looked like he had been practicing medicine for a long time, Luke noted. That made him feel better.
“Hello,” the doctor said in a grandfatherly tone. “I’m Dr. Best. How are we doing today?”
“Not bad,” Alyssa said.
“Great. If you’ll lie down, we can get started.”
Alyssa lay down and the physician picked up the transducer beside the medical sonographic instrument and began to trace Alyssa’s abdomen with it.
Luke looked at the sonogram. He saw certain bulges where the baby was, and the outlines of a head, arms and legs, but something looked off. He rubbed his eyes.
It looked really cramped in there. He saw two outlines of two heads, two sets of arms and two sets of legs.
The obstetrician finished his scan. “Everything looks fine to me. You have a little surprise though.” He grinned. “You have twins. Fraternal twins. A boy and a girl.”
Alyssa turned to her boyfriend. A smile took over her entire face.
“Isn’t that great?” she exclaimed.
“Yeah. Thank God I got that promotion,” he said. Twins? He had not been expecting that.
She tried to get up, but then slipped, hitting her stomach on the edge of the examination table.
Luke grabbed her immediately, before she could fall.
“Oww,” she said, rubbing her stomach.
Dr. Best rushed to help her. “Do you feel any pain?”
She shook her head.
“I better scan it again.” He placed the transducer on her stomach and traced it around. “It looked fine to me,” he pronounced, after a careful scan.
“You have to be careful,” the specialist added. “Unnecessary stress on the mother can kill the babies.”
Alyssa nodded, and squeezed Luke’s hand even tighter.
Luke repeated the advice in his mind like a mantra.
Unnecessary stress can kill the babies.
* * * * *
The next day, Luke sat in his new Junior Manager office at work. It was twice as big as his old one, and had a nicer window view. He could see Burrard Inlet where he was sitting. A Chevron gas station floated on the water.
After working tirelessly for the past three months, his supervisor finally graced him with good news. Next stop: Full Manager. Now that there were twins, he and Alyssa would need the money.
He looked at the ring on his desk. Four-carat diamond.
He did not know when he would propose. Had he been using his lack of promotion as an excuse not to marry her? If he had, then he had run out of excuses.
He flayed the doubts in his mind, flayed them so hard that he was sure they were dead.
He would propose to her that night, he decided, after dinner, late at night. He would take her back to the place where they had their first date. Taylor Park.
It was time.
* * * * *
That evening, when he got home, he found another message on the mini blackboard.
The hospital is especially busy tonight. They needed more staff. I’ll be home ASAP. Teriyaki chicken in the fridge. Love, A.
He remembered the advice from the doctor the day before.
Unnecessary stress can kill the babies.
He considered going to the hospital and insisting she come home. He would tell her it was for the sake of their unborn babies.
Instead, he reclined into his easy chair and turned on the TV. Alyssa was a big girl. She could make her own decisions.
He walked past the guest room, which was now the babies’ room, on his way to his room to change.
He glanced at the babies’ room, then did a double-take.
There were now two cribs instead of the one. There were also one extra of everything: socks, baby clothes, pacifiers.
Alyssa must have gone shopping without him again.
He was not surprised. He supposed he should be getting used to Alyssa’s maternal instincts taking charge.
He was heading into the kitchen to heat up some dinner when the TV attracted his attention.
The images on the screen showed a busy emergency room hospital scene. All the nurses and doctors were scrambling here and there, as though to escape from a fire. Suddenly, a patient was wheeled into the ER and the staff made a beeline toward the gurney. Sweat poured off their faces as they rushed along beside it. They looked really stressed out to Luke.
Having had enough, Luke turned off the TV and headed out the door.
When he got to the Vancouver General Hospital, he was relieved to discover that the ER was not as busy as that depicted on the TV.
On the contrary, it was nearly empty. Only a man with a bandaged head and a woman and her son were sitting in the brightly-lit waiting room.
Luke approached the first staff member he saw.
“Excuse me, I’m looking for Alyssa. I‘m her….” He stopped short. What should he call himself? “Fiancé,” he finally said.
The redhead male nurse pointed to the larger room behind the desk of the triage nurse. Recognizing Luke, the triage nurse smiled and let him pass.
He made his way past the desk and saw Alyssa on the other side. She was in her adorable nurse uniform standing, beside a pale little girl who was lying in one of the semi-private beds, shower sheets drawn around it haphazardly.
Alyssa turned and waved.
Luke waved back, but stayed put. He knew better than to disturb her while she was with a patient.
To amuse himself while waiting, he surveyed the bright emergency room. Doctors and nurses in white coats sat around the central work station in the middle of the enormous room, chatting with one another and staring into com
puter screens.
Behind Alyssa, Luke saw a door that led into a pitch-black room. Curious, he went closer to it. It was labeled Detention Room.
Who could they possibly have to detain here? He wondered.
He pressed his face against the tiny window and peered inside. He could see nothing. Then, his eyes adjusted and he saw a tiny bed in one corner, and a sink and faucet in the other. A light bulb dangled from the ceiling in the middle of the chamber.
His question was answered when a pudgy face with bulging eyes appeared out of nowhere and glared at him through the observation window.
Luke felt a jolt as he pulled back. His heart beat faster and his breathing intensified.
The same redhead male nurse approached him. “Sir, please don’t stare into the room. The detainee in there is psychologically unstable. Just a few minutes ago, the patient was shouting so loudly that he woke up some babies and made them cry.”
Luke stepped away from the room immediately.
Suddenly, the door of the Detention Room burst open, hitting Luke on the back, and sending him flying onto the floor.
The mentally unstable patient grabbed the first person he saw, and put a sharp pencil to her throat.
Unfortunately, that person happened to be Alyssa.
“Don’t come any closer, or I’ll kill her,” he threatened.
For the first time, Luke got a close look at the patient. The guy was beefy, hyper masculine and looked like he lifted weights once an hour for half an hour each session. He looked like he had XYY Syndrome. In fact, he had the same build and appearance as Duane, that guy who harassed Alyssa the first time Luke met her.
The male nurse and the doctors from the work station rushed up to the guy, who was sweating so hard his spotless straitjacket was starting to get soaked.
“Call security! Get the orderlies!” a black-haired doctor shouted to his colleagues.
“Lemme outta here,” the patient yelled. “Lemme me out or the nurse gets it!”
Luke stood up, his stomach twisted into a knot. He thought about approaching the man, but then berated himself for such a stupid idea. If he approached, his girlfriend would die. All it took was one quick stab in the throat.
He watched as Alyssa’s eyes grew alarmed, then terrified. She twisted her body slightly, as though plotting an escape.
In the background, Luke could hear gasps, whispers and then feet pounding on the linoleum floor.
The hostage-taker’s hand moved the sharp pencil closer to Alyssa’s throat.
What should I do? thought Luke.
The loudspeaker announced, “Code White! Code White!”
What could I do that won’t endanger Alyssa? He wondered.
The beefy orderlies arrived, all at least six feet tall. They looked like martial artists.
The doctor with black hair, the head doctor, Luke assumed, raised his hands with his palms facing the large man, as though surrendering. “We don’t want to hurt you. Why don’t you put down the pencil, let go of the nurse and we can talk?”
“You’ll let me go home?” The man’s face was a mix of hope and frustration. He looked painfully intense, as though he were concentrating on a particularly hard calculus final exam.
“Yes, you can go home,” the doctor said, forcing a smile.
The patient glanced around frantically and mulled it over. As he scanned his surroundings, the hand with the weapon, whether deliberately or inadvertently, inched even closer to Alyssa.
Luke decided this would be the best time to strike.
But, before he could move in, the head doctor signaled to the orderlies, who lunged at the patient. The patient dropped the pencil and pushed Alyssa away.
The orderlies tackled the man, and restrained him.
Luke stopped paying attention to the man as soon as he had let go of Alyssa. He was prepared to catch his girlfriend in his arms, but the man had pushed Alyssa in the other direction.
Luke watched helplessly as Alyssa hit her stomach on the corner of a desk. She lay on the ground, crumpled like a Raggedy Ann doll.
He rushed over to her and inspected her face. Strands of her hair were matted against her forehead. Her eyes looked wild, even feral and her breathing sounded like a tea kettle boiling on the stove.
“Are you OK?” Luke asked.
This is all my fault, Luke thought. If I hadn’t looked into the room and provoked the patient….
Alyssa pointed at her stomach, then whimpered.
Luke looked concerned. What was she trying to say?
He was distracted by something red on the ground.
A ketchup red stain, he saw.
“I think I just lost the twins,” she said. “I felt them leave.”
She looked down at her stomach, then patted it once.
“Bye bye, my babies,” she whispered, then closed her eyes.
* * * * *
Chapter 8
A few minutes later, Alyssa was placed on a gurney and wheeled into the Intensive Care Unit of the ER.
Their obstetrician, Dr. Best, happened to be on duty in the ER that night. After examining Alyssa and running some tests on the ultrasound, he stood by her bed with a grim expression plastered onto his wrinkled face. Luke hovered nearby.
The doctor scanned the test results, frowning.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news.” He looked right at Alyssa. “You’ve lost the babies.” Alyssa’s eyes were barely open as she lay on the hospital bed.
Luke looked at his girl, and saw a facial expression he had never seen before on her, not even when she was upset with her mother.
Her face was twisted. Her eyes were hollow. Her mouth was a straight line, nearly disappearing altogether into her face.
Dr. Best put down the documents. “Were you on your feet a lot?”
Alyssa stared at the doctor in silence. She then looked down at her stomach. The bleeding had stopped.
Luke answered for her. “Yes, she was.”
“Bad idea,” the doctor said. “Really bad idea.”
* * * * *
When they got home that night, Alyssa went straight to the crib room. Luke followed her and stood in the doorway. She trailed her fingers along one crib’s tiny mattress, then stared at the baby paraphernalia on the guest bed. She then turned her attention to the empty cribs, gazing at it for a long time.
Luke watched and didn’t know what he should do or say. He assumed she was thinking about what the dead babies would be doing in the cribs if they were alive: giggling, crying, fussing.
After a while, she went straight to their bedroom, got into bed and pulled the covers over her head. Luke stood by the door, unsure of whether to go in. He was going to ask her to marry him the night before. He had it all planned out. Now, he was thinking the proposal should wait, at least until they dealt with the miscarriage.
“Alyssa?” he called out tentatively.
She did not even stir.
He sat on the bed.
“Alyssa?” he tried again.
Still nothing.
He removed the blankets gently, revealing a tear-stained face underneath.
She wiped away her tears. “When I was a little girl, I won the spelling bee. My second-grade teacher gave me some dolls as a reward. I still remember her telling me that raising kids is the most special thing in the world. I took those dolls everywhere I went. I brushed their hair, dressed them up, even bandaged one after I accidentally broke her arm.”
She stopped, and smiled as she reminisced. The smile looked out of place on a face that had been crying just moments earlier, like a dark cloud on a sunny day.
She sat up and propped up a pillow, and leaned against it. “It was something to care for. To love. And to be loved back.”
Luke listened with his full attention, staring into her flushed face.
He brushed a loose strand of hair that was matted near her eye. He then climbed into bed in her. He put his arms around her and she rested her head on his shoulder.
&n
bsp; She closed her eyes. “My mother neglected me her for career,” she continued.
“She focused entirely on her academic career. I took care of myself. I raised myself. I told myself that I would never be like her. That I would be the best mother in the world.”
“We can try again,” Luke said. “You can get pregnant again.”
“What if I miscarry again?”
“You won’t. Just don’t work as hard.”
She picked her head up and looked at him, her eyes boring into him. “It won’t be the same. We were going to have twins. Twins. One of them was going to be named Shaylee.”
“This is my fault,” he said. “If I hadn’t come down there and provoked the patient. If I had protected you better….”
Alyssa put a finger to his lips. “You came down because you were worried about me. And some careless orderly had left the door of the Detention Room open. He would have come out sooner or later. And you couldn‘t approach me when he had the knife to my throat, because no one knew what he would have done.”
When she put it that way, Luke knew he could not argue with her logic.
She put a few fingers on his neck and stroked him there. “It’s no one’s fault,” she whispered. “I don’t ever want to hear you say that. If anything, it‘s my fault for working even though I should have been resting.”
He said nothing. He knew that it was no one‘s fault, but he could not shake off the nagging feelings of guilt.
He also felt that the situation was still unresolved, and it would come back to bite them in the ass.
He wanted to say something but he did not know what, so he just held her tight, until she fell asleep a while later.
* * * * *
Over the next few weeks, the two of them threw themselves into their work. They did not speak of the miscarriage, but it was always there in the background, like a tiny leak in a boat, barely noticeable, but disastrous if left unattended.
One day, Luke came home from work, and found that dinner had not already been made. There was no note on the mini blackboard. He waited a few hours, but she still did not return. He yawned, then turned on the TV, then fell asleep.
It was past midnight when Alyssa came home. Luke rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and saw the blurry image of his girlfriend. Her hair was undone and there was bags under her eyes.
Hiding In His Dreams Page 6