A Sea of Lies

by H Dillon Hunt

  “Is she awake-”

  “Sam, look at her heart rate.” Elle gasps.

  I look at the monitor and it’s as low as it has been all day. I nod, “I know, we’re doing everything we can to get it up.”

  “Oh! I know,” Maddie gasps. “You need to do the kangaroo hold.”

  “God, why didn’t I think of that?” I ask, dumbfounded. I immediately pick Arabella up and lay her against my chest.

  “Oh, I’ve heard of that!” Elle says, excited. “The skin to skin contact has been known to work wonders for things like this. Your body heat and the physical closeness are better than the incubator.”

  I have to be careful of all the tubes and wires she’s attached to, but I finally settle her tiny head against my shoulder. I sit back in the rocking chair and watch the monitor carefully.

  “Close your eyes and rest. Try to take deep breaths and calm yourself, it will calm her down too.” Maddie says.

  I obey, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. I try to think only positive thoughts. The look on Aubree’s face when she sees our baby girl for the first time. The way she smiles at me as she falls asleep. The love in her eyes when I asked her to be my wife.

  The exhaustion of the past twenty-four hours catches up with me all at once. I hear Elle whisper that it’s working and it’s enough to give me peace of mind to drift off to sleep.

  Chapter 30

  Bree

  I wake up slowly, the pounding in my head increasing with each bit of awareness I gain. I ache everywhere, but the need to know where my daughter is and how she is doing is greater than any pain I may feel. I try to sit up a bit in the stiff bed, my eyes still glued shut for fear of the bright lights.

  “Hey there, sleepy head.” Comes a soft voice to my left. It sounds like Elle. I peak an eye open and the lights are dimmed. I open them all the way and sit up some more. Elle’s sitting in a chair to my left. Maddie is snoring softly on the empty bed to my right. They’re both in scrubs, which either means they’re on duty now or just finished a shift. Either way, I know that when I went into labor, neither of them had another shift for 48 hours.

  “How-” I clear my scratchy throat and she hands me a cup of water. I take a sip and try to speak again. “How is Arabella, how long have I been out?”

  “You’ve been pretty doped up on pain meds, in and out for the past two days.” She tells me softly.

  “And my baby?” I ask.

  “She’s stable now,” Elle smiles reassuringly. “Her heart rate was really low and we couldn’t get her vitals up at first. Sam held her against his chest for a few hours and she starting getting better immediately. I think she’s out of the woods for now.”

  “Sam,” I sigh, a rush of tangled emotions resurfacing at the thought of him.

  “You just missed him,” she says quietly. I can’t read her as she says this. “He’s on call, he just got paged into a surgery ten minutes ago.”

  I chew on my lip, half disappointed that he’s not here, half relieved. We didn’t exactly get to talk about the fact that he’s been lying to me before everything happened.

  To my right, Maddie wakes herself up with a loud snore. She blinks around bleary-eyed for a moment and realized I’m awake.

  “Well, hey there sleepy head.” Elle and I say in unison.

  She waves us off with a grumpy look and drags herself off of her stiff hospital bed over to the edge of mine. She curls up on my right side and hugs me limply.

  “How are you feeling?” She mumbles around a yawn.

  “Sore,” I respond, with a sigh. She stands up and shuffles to the table where her purple stethoscope is laid next to Elle’s green one. I look at Elle’s sleepy face, her eyes drooping lazily and ask, “How long have you two been here?”

  “Since we brought you in,” Maddie says around another yawn as she places the stethoscope on my chest to listen to my heart. “Deep breath.”

  I suck in a deep breath and blow it out obediently. Then another, and another.

  “I want to go see my baby,” I tell them as she drapes the purple cord back over her neck and reaches for the blood pressure cuff. “Just do this later.”

  “No,” Elle says sternly. “Let her check your pressure, you lost a lot of blood.”

  “What happened?” I ask wearily.

  They exchange a look and go on to explain that when the baby tore through the cerclage, the damage done to my cervix was extensive. They tell me I lost so much blood I had to have a transfusion, and they’ve had me heavily sedated over the past few days so that I could rest.

  I sigh heavily, amazed at what all I have missed in the past few days. I knew Arabella would be my one and only biological child. She’s a miracle baby if she can get through these next couple of weeks without getting sick or declining.

  Relief trickles through me. I unclench the fists I didn’t realize were balled up and my shoulders relax. I don’t care about the damage it caused me. I’m fine, I’ll heal. It’s my daughter I was worried about and knowing she’s out of the woods for now is my only focus.

  “Okay, let’s go see your baby girl.” Maddie smiles, finishing her checks on me. Elle goes to get a wheelchair from the corner of the room. I don’t argue, when they help me up out of the bed I sway dangerously, my vision spinning.

  My head clears a little as they wheel me down the hall. I have an anxious, unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach. Both from not having seen Arabella yet and not knowing where I stand with her father.

  When we pass through the double doors to the NICU, it’s nearly empty except for a few nurses and an old man in a rocking chair. He’s singing softly to the swaddled bundle in his arms. I look into each of the incubators for Arabella as they wheel me down the row, but they’re all empty except for a baby boy in the special care unit. I glance at Elle to ask where she is, but she parks me in front of the old man before I have a chance to speak.

  “Bree, this is Joe.” Maddie grins. “He’s a baby buddy here in the NICU.”

  Joe beams at me, smiling with his whole face. He reminds me of the cartoon character, Goofy, with his long southern drawl and his wide smile. “Pleasure to meet you, Bree, we’ve been waitin’ on you.”

  “Nice to meet you too,” I say, quietly eyeing him. He stands up on shaky legs and holds out the pink bundle he was singing to. He doesn’t have to tell me she’s mine, I know it the second I lay eyes on her.

  Every inch of my restless being calms as I nestle her into the crook of my arm. She’s so small, the tiniest thing I’ve ever seen, but she feels so real now. Tears flood my eyes and I blink them away furiously so that I can stare unashamedly at this incredible little human that I created. This tiny, perfect thing is mine. I made her, I gave her life. And I get to keep her and love her and protect her forever.

  I’m enveloped in a peace I have never felt before, mixed strongly with a fear that is just as potent. What if I mess this up? She is so perfect, so pure. What if I do something wrong?

  Joe laughs a husky wheeze, his smile growing wider if that’s even possible. “She’s a needy one, this little Bella, she wants to be held round the clock!”

  Elle takes a seat beside me, “She wasn’t responding well to any treatments, but as soon as Sam tried the kangaroo hold, she started improving.”

  Maddie touches a fingertip to one of Arabella’s tiny toes. “She hasn’t let anyone put her down since,” she grins. “We had to bring Joe in to hold her while the nurses tended to the other babies.”

  I chuckle a little, thinking it fitting that my baby would be the one that needs the most attention. I also can’t help but feel a little behind. She was only born two days ago, but it already feels like everyone else knows my baby better than I do. I don’t plan to leave this room until I can take her with me. I want to sit here and stare at her for hours.

  Maddie and Elle’s beepers go off at the same time and they jump to their feet.

  “Go,” I tell them. “I’m good here.”

  They tak
e off and I move from the wheelchair to the rocking chair beside Joe. He just sits there smiling, making no move to leave. I get comfortable in my chair and then adjust Arabella against my chest like I’ve helped countless mothers do working in this unit. The Kangaroo hold has been known to work wonders for premature babies to regulate their temperature and heart rate. They are not supposed to be out in the world yet, they innately need close human contact, something the incubators can’t provide.

  As I part the blanket she’s wrapped in, I notice it’s one of the many that I had knit for her before she was born. It has scarlet and gold stripes with the Gryffindor crest in the center. I knit one for each Hogwarts house. Partly out of boredom and having ample time to knit my heart out, and partly because Sam and I always joked that we wouldn’t determine our child’s house for them, that they would sort themselves.

  “Her daddy brought her that blanket, he said you made it.” Joe smiles, happy as ever. “He said he wasn’t picking a house, just that she needed some bravery. I think he’s right, she could use a little courage, long road ahead of that little Bella, there is. Gryffindor are the brave ones, right?”

  I can’t help but laugh in my surprise of this old man’s knowledge of Harry Potter houses.

  “Yes, they’re the brave ones.” I smile. I like this guy.

  “You’re a Gryffindor,” He says, nodding. He talks faster than I can listen, all his sentences running together at random. “I’m a Hufflepuff myself, my granddaughter sorted me. She got all into the books, read em all five times or so and begged me to read em with her. She’s about your age, just had a baby herself. Named em Amos, she’s a Hufflepuff too you see. Hufflepuffs get a lot a crap, but I’m a proud Puff, I am.”

  When he stops talking he just nods and smiles. A giggle bubbles up out of me, I love this guy. “Cedric Diggory was a Hufflepuff, and he won the Goblet of Fire with Harry.”

  “Exactly!” Joe exclaims, as he stands back up on wobbly legs. “I need me some puddin’, you want some puddin’?”

  I open my mouth to tell him no thank you but he keeps on. “Who am I kiddin’? You’ve been asleep for two days, if anyone needs some nana-pudding, it’s you.”

  I chuckle as he shuffles over to the fridge in the corner and pulls out two puddin’ cups.

  “Well damn,” He frowns over his shoulder. Even his frown looks happy. “They only have chocolate, you want chocolate? I can run down the hall and get some-”

  “Joe, chocolate is great.” I smile. “Thank you.”

  “Well, alright then, okay.” He goes on, grabbing two spoons and shuffling back over. “Just not as good as nana pudding, but I guess it’ll do.”

  He sits back down real slow, straining against the apparent arthritis in his knobby knees. “I bet that handsome fiancé of yours will be comin’ ‘round soon.”

  I sigh heavily, the dark feelings that have been looming in the back of my mind taking a forefront.

  “Uh oh, that’s not a good sign,” Joe says, his eyes going round. “My Kathleen used to sigh like that when she was so mad she couldn’t even yell. What’d he do?”

  “That’s about how I feel, Joe.” I lay my head back and close my eyes against the rush of emotions. “I don’t know if I’m angry or crushed or both. I don’t even know how to face him. I find out he’s been hiding something huge from me for over two years. Two years, Joe.”

  “What was he hiding? He didn’t cheat on ya did he?”

  “No, he didn’t cheat.” I let out a breath, intent to change the subject, but it just spills out of me. I tell him the whole story. Starting with getting pregnant with Jackson and ending with my last memories from two days ago. I tell him all about how Ryan and I fell apart, and how Sam helped me put the pieces back together. I told him about our struggles with getting pregnant with Arabella unexpectedly, and how he supported me every step of the way. I told him of how I felt when I found out the truth, like my world had been turned on its axis. I sit there and talk and spill my guts to this complete stranger while Arabella sleeps on my chest. It doesn’t really make me feel any better, but it does begin to sort out the murky details that I haven’t wanted to look at. Looking back I can see how many signs were there, all the times Sam looked at me like he had something to say, just to swallow it back down.

  “Well hell honey, you’ve sure been through it,” Joe says, his words coming out slow for the first time. “I can see how you’d be upset that he kept that from ya, but lemme ask ya somethin’. Does it change anything?”

  I give him an incredulous look. “Of course it does. It changes everything. I don’t know who he is anymore, the man I fell in love with would never lie to me or keep something so vital from me.”

  “Now, you may think that, but when you went into labor with that little miracle you’re holdin’, scared outta your damn mind, who did you want by your side?”

  “Sam,” I say without hesitation. I remember being so furious with him, but when he took my hand, I felt safe. No matter how much trust may have been sacrificed with his lie, I still needed him more than anyone in that moment.

  “And as angry as you are, what seems worse; Spending the rest of your life, raising your child with a man you love and that loves you somethin’ fierce? Or walkin away because you’re scared you’ll get hurt again?”

  “Being away from him sounds like the worst alternative,” I say, my heart aching at just the thought. “But it doesn’t change the fact that he lied to me about something so big. I mean, how can I marry someone who handles things by avoiding them just to spare my feelings?”

  “Lemme tell you somethin, marriage ain’t nothing more than two ignorant people growing up together, and guess what? You never get there. It’s hard as hell and you gonna fight and cry and hurt each other like you doin’ right now. But if you can sort some things out and learn some things, you also gonna love and be loved in return like you never knew you could be loved. You gonna have a true partner by your side through all the hard stuff and a best friend through all the good stuff. We can’t do this life alone, no we can’t. If we could, God would have stopped with Adam, but he didn’t. He saw it wasn’t good for us to be alone, so He gave him Eve.”

  “I was married to my sweetheart for forty-five years before she went on to be with the Lord. And we had sometimes we wanted to kill each other and we had sometimes we was so stupid in love, hell and high water wasn’t gonna tear us apart. Marriage ain’t easy, ain’t nothin’ good in this world worth havin’ that’s easy to get,” he stops and raises a brow, looking at me with a stern expression. “cept maybe pizza…”

  He considers this a moment and then goes on, fast talking as ever. “You’re gonna have to work at it every day and pray the Lord keeps you humble. But it’s the best thing in this world, love is. Those forty-five years I spent with my Kathleen were the best of my life and I’ve spent every day since she left me prayin’ the Lord would bring me back home to her.”

  I smile, silent tears rolling down my face. I know that Sam and I can have a marriage like that. I want a marriage like that, and I want it with Sam. I’m angry with him, without a doubt. But I love him so much more than I’m upset with him. I suck in a deep breath, “Thank you, Joe.”

  Chapter 31

  Sam

  I’ve been at the hospital for a full seventy-two hours and I am officially a zombie. As soon as my shift ends I go straight to Aubree’s room. They started slowly lowering her medications yesterday before I got paged into surgery, so she should be awake by now.

  She’s not in her room when I open the door, so I continue on down the hall, knowing she’ll be in the NICU.

  Apprehension settles into my core as I approach the doors to the special care unit. My biggest fears have mostly passed. Bree is safe, Arabella is doing exceptionally well considering how early she came. Things seem to be stable with both of them, for the most part. They’re okay...physically at least.

  Emotionally, things couldn’t be more volatile. I don’t know where Bree sta
nds. I don’t know how she feels about any of this. Three days have passed since she found out about Ryan and went into labor, but it feels like it was a lifetime ago. Ever since she and Arabella stabilized, the state of our relationship moved to the forefront of my mind. I can’t get out of my mind the way she looked at me. She looked at me as if I was a stranger, someone she didn’t know and definitely didn’t trust. The start of mine and Aubree’s relationship years ago was such a natural progression. She seamlessly fit into the empty void in my life that I wasn’t even aware of until it was filled. When we met, it was as if we had known each other all along. She’s never looked at me with apprehension, I’ve never given her a reason to. But the look of mistrust and betrayal on her face makes my stomach turn.

  All of the ways that I continuously justified my actions in my mind, they all seem to fall so flat now. Why did I think this would spare her any more pain? The cold truth is that life is brutal, and it doesn’t care how much pain you’ve already been dealt, it will always give you more. The light that her love has breathed into me is just proof that with the right person, the pain is easier to manage.

  But I can’t manage the pain that I would face if I were to lose Bree. I think that fear is what has caused all of this to begin with. She has every right to have lost faith in me. She has every right to tell me she never wants to see me again. I have evaded the truth for too long, and now I have to face the consequences. I have to wade through the sea of lies I’ve separated us with and fight for us.

  I close my eyes before I walk through the doors, whispering a quiet prayer for one more chance. My mistakes are too great to try and sort on my own, and if this journey with our baby has taught me anything, it’s that faith in something greater is really the only hope we have in this life.

  I have to have faith in our love, it’s the purest thing I’ve ever been given.