Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  That afternoon, we scrub into surgery together for the first time—on a routine endovascular coiling. It’s a pleasure watching him cut: one I never dreamed I’d get to see.

  After, as we scrub out, he murmurs, “Nice job, Rutherford.” We step into the hall together, and before we part ways, chasing pages, he smirks. “You know what they say about a woman who’s skilled with her hands.”

  “What?”

  He laughs, looking unusually buoyant. “I have no idea—but I fucking love your hands. You were great in there.”

  We round a corner, and he kisses my forehead, just as he gets paged down to ER.

  Landon

  Surgery with Evie was incredible. I’m still smiling as I head downstairs. How lucky are we? That this shit worked out the way it did. Thank fuck for Pfizer that one summer, so we’d be in the same class. Thank fuck we met in 2007 and not 1987—so I could keep track of her online. I’m so glad I didn’t let her slip away, that I kept tabs on her, even when I felt like a pathetic fuck for it.

  I’m feeling so damn chipper, Eilert frowns the second she approaches me outside bay one in the ER.

  “What are you grinning about?” She puts her hands on her hips and gives me a sassy look that makes me laugh.

  “C’mon, chief. Can’t a guy have a good day?”

  “I don’t know.” Her brown eyes narrow, and I chuckle.

  “All right, jolly Jones. We’ve got a ten year old female. Fell from a tree house four hours ago. Family deemed her okay, no signs of concussion, no mobility issues, then her hand got numb and tingly, then just numb. She’s at X-ray now. If there’s a need, we’ll move to CT with her. I don’t think we use the portable for this, though. As far as diagnosis, I’m thinking maybe bronchial plexus. I know you’ve got a soft spot for peds.” She winks. “You’re welcome.”

  “Thanks, Doc E. I’ll get her worked up.”

  “First, you’ve gotta come and sign off on this admit. It’s my lunchtime. I’m craving some of that pasta with the marinara sauce.”

  She shows me to a morose man who’s been admitted for an aneurism.

  “You got any family with you, sir?”

  He tells me he doesn’t. I find out his wife died just two months ago—right here on the eighth floor: oncology. Before I send him upstairs, we go over various counseling services the hospital offers for bereaved spouses. Then he’s off, whisked away by transport, and it’s time to take a glance at my peds case.

  A quick peek through the curtain reveals she’s back from X-ray. Someone’s sitting with her, maybe more than one someone. I linger outside the curtain as I glance over her scans. X-rays look normal, vitals also normal, so I guess it’s off to CT with her.

  The second I pull the curtain back, my stomach bottoms out. For the first few blinks, my brain sees Evie—Evie’s face and hair and posture. Little Evie. The resemblance is so stark, I take a step back, the air pushed from my lungs by shock.

  I blink at the girl, searching for some crack in my perception—but the more I blink, the more I just see Evie.

  Someone cloned her.

  I blink a few more times as my head buzzes.

  “Doc…” A burly man stands from his plastic chair, stepping toward me with his hand extended. “Hey there.” He clasps my hand. “I hope you’re here to fix my daughter.”

  As his hand clasps mine, my gaze slides to the patient. And that’s when she looks at me with my eyes.

  Fucking shitfuck, those are my eyes. Evie’s face, and my eyes. It’s unmistakable. I start to sweat as I look at her.

  The girl frowns with Evie’s lips. “Are you a doctor?”

  Fucking shit, she even sounds like Evie. I look down at my shoes on an inhale, then back up at her.

  “I am.” I step closer to the bed. “So…I hear you’re having…problems with your hand?” My voice sounds froggy. My legs feel strange, so I reach out for the bed’s rail as I squat beside her. “Did I hear you fell from a tree house?”

  She nods, looking matter-of-fact. “I fell off the ladder.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah.”

  I look down at my tablet, back up at her. “So…your name is?”

  “Ash,” she says, her gray gaze blinking up at me.

  I inhale slowly. “How old are you, Ash?”

  “I’m ten years old.” She gives me a frustrated look: all crinkled brows and pinched lips. “My hand is numb and tingly. I don’t like it.”

  “Let me take a look.” I stand and lean down over her so I can examine her arm, and right up by her, I can really see her round, gray eyes. They blink, and the room tilts slightly.

  “You look funny. Are you funny?” She tilts her head, and…fuck, it’s Evie. My body flushes and I stand up, feeling dizzy. Wasn’t there a movie or a book about…some kind of time traveler? I swallow as I wonder if this girl is some kind of multi-dimensional Evie. Then I realize that her name is Ash, and I feel like I might be sick.

  “So, Ash…you…do you guys live around here?”

  “Kind of.”

  “And you have a tree house?”

  “My dad built it.”

  I swallow. I look to her parents almost reflexively. They’re both frowning at me.

  “Sorry,” I say, rubbing my forehead. “Got a little headache,” I try.

  “Are you hurt like me?” the girl asks.

  “Nahh, I’m fine.” I take a deep breath, look down at my tablet, and try again. The tablet’s off. I turn it on with shaking fingers.

  “You sound Southern,” I say, looking to the girl’s father.

  “We’re from South Carolina, that’s right. Transferred out here seven years ago. I work with the railroad.”

  I nod. Then I try to think of what I need to do next. This girl needs a CT scan. Maybe an MRI, too.

  “What did you say your name was?” I ask. My head feels a little hollow.

  “Ash.”

  “I know that,” I say in a teasing tone. “But Ash what?”

  “You said what’s your name, and I said that my name is Ash! There is no what.” She makes a silly face.

  “Is there some kind of problem?” asks the mother. “You’re the doctor?”

  “I’m a surgeon.”

  The girl wails. “I don’t want surgery! What’s the matter with my arm? I have gymnastics camp tomorrow!”

  “Ash, honey, try to calm down so this nice doctor— What’s your name?” the woman asks.

  “Is Ash a family name?” I ask.

  “Excuse me?”

  My grip on the bed’s footboard tightens as another sick feeling comes over me. “I said is it a family name,” I rasp.

  “I’m not sure that’s really your business.”

  I look at the girl, who’s looking at me with my eyes. She looks sad. Uneasy. I blink a few times, wondering if I am going to pass out and will happen if I do. Eilert will be so confused.

  “Do you need to sit down?” The woman frowns. “You look very pale.”

  “No. No. I’ll get your…get this girl here taken care of. She’s your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  I look down at my tablet, still not booted up, as the top of my head starts buzzing. “When was her birthday? What did you say?”

  “It should be there,” the mom snaps. “They asked for all this in the intake room.”

  “Was it December?” No… “Where was she born?”

  “That doesn’t matter for her arm, but she was born in North Carolina.”

  Oh fuck. I feel bile in my throat. “Where? I need to know. It’s…for a study.”

  “I was born in Asheville.” The girl looks annoyed with us. “Will you fix my arm? Please?”

  I try to inhale, but I can’t. I try explaining. “You’re right, I’m…a little off.” I wave in the direction of my head, which now feels like an over-filled balloon. “Before I go—” I look again at her, then at her mother— “can you please step out into the hall with me?”

  “Into the hall?” s
he asks.

  “I’ll go with you,” the man says.

  We step out, and I scroll through my tablet, my hand shaking so much I nearly drop it as I look for her chart. Birthday… What’s the birthday?

  I see September 5 and feel relief so overwhelming I have to reach my hand out and make contact with the wall.

  But NO.

  My brain lurches.

  If I left Evie in December, it would be September that she would have…

  I blink at the father, noticing the dark pores on his nose and how his bushy eyebrows trail back toward his temples, just a few hairs here and there.

  “I think you need to sit down, son.”

  I shake my head, inhaling slowly. “Was your girl…adopted?”

  I don’t know how I get back upstairs. I ask for Evie. Everywhere, I ask for Evie. She’s in surgery. I pace around. I hear myself paged: once, twice, three times.

  She emerges through the door of the scrub room, her brown-blonde hair in a bun, her face looking relaxed as she steps out into the hall. I mean to catch her by the arm, but I can’t move. Can only rasp her name as she walks toward the nurse call station.

  She whirls. “Landon.” She laughs, clearly glad to see me standing in the hall. I watch her smile wither as her gaze moves over my face. “What’s the matter?”

  She’s right by me, her hand on my shoulder. I step back, shaking my head. I don’t even have the words to say what’s wrong.

  “Hey…” She lifts her hands up, in a mock surrender pose. “What’s wrong,” she asks me softly. Her eyes dart behind her, toward the ORs. “Did you come from surgery? Did something happen?” Her blue eyes are full of empathy.

  “You could say that something happened,” I say slowly.

  “What?”

  I try to speak and can’t at first. The hall around me spins. “You had a baby.”

  Nine

  Evie

  “I saw her down in ER. She had your face—” he points— “and my eyes.” I watch as fury twists his features. “I was her doctor, Evie! She looked just like you,” he moans. “September 2007, born in Asheville…” He shakes his head, his chest pumping with his frantic breaths.

  Adrenaline has lit me up, but I can’t tell him! If I do, this will be over, and it can’t be over. “Why did you think this girl you saw was—”

  “No! Don’t do that shit with me, Evie! They told me she’s adopted.” Landon’s voice cracks. “They told me she was…yours.”

  I shake my head as I move toward him. “We should step into a room—”

  He holds his arms out as a barrier. “Why’d you name her Ashtyn, Evie? It reminds me of my mother.” His face crumples, his head bows, and his hand comes over his eyes as Landon’s shoulders start to shake.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I was gone. You said you tried to find me. You tried, but you couldn’t…so…”

  “Come here.” I reach for him, and Landon stumbles back.

  “Landon, please come with me. Let me talk!” I start to cry as he takes one step back, and then another, moving his hand off his tear-streaked face.

  “She...uh…hurt her arm,” he says in a thick voice. “I think she’s okay now. Bay three.”

  He reaches out to touch the wall, blinking as he steadies himself. Then he turns and jogs off down the hallway.

  My mind is spinning, my pulse racing, my heart wrenched with pain so awful, it’s like the day I birthed her—Ashtyn Nora Deckert—someone else’s baby. But she wasn’t someone else’s when she got here. She was mine.

  I came home at thirty-seven weeks so I could birth her in my state of residence. So I could finalize the deal to give her to the Deckerts. I remember it was strangely cold that week, the weather dark and misty. Sometimes fall in Asheville is vibrant and beautiful, but that one wasn’t.

  I cried every night. I would lie awake, exhausted and uncomfortable, and I would beg the universe for Landon. If he came back to me, I was going to change my mind and keep the baby.

  One night, I slept downstairs in his old bed, where our baby was created. That’s the night contractions started.

  I went to the hospital—Carolina General—when my parents thought it seemed like time. Emmaline cried because she couldn’t come with us. My grandma kept her.

  During labor, I was treated with the utmost care and kindness by my parents’ colleagues. My mother held my hand while I screamed and moaned, and I remember how she tried to tell me moms and daughters had been doing this together for thousands of years.

  “No boys,” she told Dad when he called from in the hall.

  Makayla was my only friend who knew the truth. She sat in the waiting room with Dad, Aunt Raina, and my other grandma.

  In the moments that I pushed, I remember thinking I was no different than Landon’s mother, a horrible abandoner who broke his heart before his poor young mind could even form its first memories. I was giving up my own child at the very same place she had.

  I pushed hard, and felt an awful fire of pain all through my legs and belly. I started to sob, and then I saw her tiny, crying face. She had my mouth and cheeks, and Landon’s brows. When someone laid her on my chest, I fell in love. Our baby. Perfect.

  I cried the whole night while I held her. Her parents wanted her to get my colostrum, and my mom wanted closure for me, so the deal was, that first night, I’d be with her alone.

  Mom asked me only once if I was sure. I’d just emerged from my first shower, and Mom was looking down at her from where they sat together in the rocking chair.

  “Dad and I can’t help the way some other parents could, but Evie…this needs to be your choice.”

  My mother looked at me, and I at her, and I knew she was telling me to do what my heart said I had to.

  I took her from my mom, and I tried to envision her at day care while I finished school and went to college. I closed my eyes and prayed, and thought of Landon. If I kept her, she would likely never know her father. Landon had been off the grid for months. I had to face that. If I gave her to the Deckerts, she’d have both. She would also get two older brothers. I had seen their pictures of the bedroom they had for her. The diaper bag and car seat. Her parents had even let me help name her.

  They arrived a few hours later, and when I saw Clara Deckert sob and collapse against her burly husband, when they cried with me and talked to me and listened, when they promised they would send me pictures, and invite me for birthday parties, when they told me she was what would fill the holes inside their hearts from Clara’s stillbirth the year before…what could I do?

  They held her with such care, and in their eyes, I could see pride. Clara giggled like a teenager herself and rubbed the baby’s little toes, and I could see that she would be okay. She’d be better than okay. She would be wholly cared for, wholly loved.

  Before they left, I fed her one last time, then Clara handed her to Mark. She walked with me into the bathroom. We held hands, and she said, “You’re my angel, Evie. You are Ashtyn’s angel, and because of you, she made it here, where all of us can love her.”

  I let them take her. In that moment, it felt right. It almost always did—until I saw Landon again.

  Mark and Clara tell me everything when I get to the ER. Ash has a mild brachial plexus injury from falling out of the tree house Mark built her and her brothers last year. Her arm is in a sling, but all is well; her CT and her MRI look good. When I see her, she smiles and hugs me. “Evie!”

  After that, out in the hall, I grill Mark on his exchange with Landon.

  He recounts their conversation, shaking his head sadly. “Why didn’t you tell us he was here? We tried to call before we came.”

  I do my best to reassure them.

  “He would never take her or anything like that. He’s a neurosurgeon, just like me. We’re married to our jobs.” I wrap my arms around myself. “All of this is my fault. I could have told him, but I waited. I was selfish.”

  “No you’re not. I know you. You’re not selfi
sh,” Mark says quietly.

  I start to cry, and shake my head. “I was this time.”

  I don’t know if Landon can forgive me, and without him, I don’t know how I’ll survive. I accept Mark’s hug and try to pull myself together.

  Within the hour, they’ve got discharge papers. We hug goodbye with promises to get together soon. I see Ashtyn once or twice a month, and she knows I’m her birth mother.

  “What about Landon? Dr. Jones,” Mark says, hanging behind Ashtyn and Clara. “Do you think he’ll want to get to know her too?”

  He wants that—I see it in his eyes. The Deckerts want what’s best for Ash. They know that knowing us, given some strong contextualization and a lot of honest talking, will probably anchor Ashtyn rather than unmoor her.

  My eyes fill with tears as I shake my head. “I don’t know. I…maybe. But I don’t know. I need to find him. After he found out, he left.”

  Eilert finds me shortly after the Deckerts go. She asks if I’ve seen Landon. I almost tell her, but I realize it’s not mine to tell. I tell her I’m not sure.

  “Apparently he just left while he was seeing the girl who just got discharged. No one’s seen him since.”

  “I’ll keep a look out for him.”

  I call Landon, too, and text him.

  ‘I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. Please call me. You don’t have to forgive me, but please let me try to explain. I’ll leave and we can talk about it. Anything you want.’

  My shift rolls on, through agonizing hours when I’m so distraught that I consider leaving, too. Finally, it’s almost nine o’clock. I have a plan in place to drive right to his house.

  I pass Eilert at the nurse desk on floor three as she heads out for the night.

  “Evie, you’re about to be paged down to ER.” My pager buzzes at that second, and Eilert looks at me apologetically. “I know you’ve got floor notes, but they’re saying they need another hand down there for a possible spinal cord injury. I’ve got to get moving. Darius is headed out to summer camp tomorrow morning.”

  I linger in the stairwell, wiping my eyes.