6. Joseph
CHAPTER SIX
JOSEPH
I see the shock on her face. She doesn't know. She's early enough that she wouldn't have any reason to suspect it, and I can tell from the way her whole body goes still that this is the first time she's hearing it.
But then she looks at me. And something cold moves through her expression. Not just shock. Dread.
Why is she looking at me like that?
And then it clicks.
I look at the nurse. "How many weeks did you say?"
"Seven to eight."
My heart drops, and everything goes cold.
The math isn't hard to do. That was the time we met for dinner. The time she made me laugh, the time I kissed her, and she felt so right. The time we…
I swallow the lump in my throat and try to keep my face steady. "Okay. Thank you. We'll need abdominal shielding for the imaging. Pregnancy-safe pain management going forward, acetaminophen-based, no NSAIDs. Flag her chart and page OB for a consult."
The nurse nods, writes it down, and leaves.
The curtain closes. It's just us.
Neither of us moves. The monitors beep. The ER hums on the other side of the curtain. And I stand there, three feet from her bed, with the math running through my head like a train I can't stop.
I walk toward her slowly. She's still staring at the space where the nurse was standing. Her face is caught somewhere between shock and something worse, something that hasn't finished forming yet.
I keep my voice low. The way I would with any patient, except she's not any patient, and my hands are shaking inside my coat pockets.
"Millie." I sit on the stool beside her bed. "Have you been with anyone else? Since that night?"
She shakes her head. Her face shifts, shock folding into something that looks like disbelief, and I can read every second of it because that's the thing about her.
She has the most expressive face I've ever seen.
She doesn't need words. You can watch her think.
You can watch her feel. It's one of the first things I noticed that night at dinner, how her whole face moves when she's amused or surprised or pretending not to be interested.
It's also why I know, right now, that she's not lying.
The math is done. The answer is simple. The answer is me.
Shit.
For the first time in my life, I don't know what to say.
I used protection. I'm always careful. I try to think back to that night, try to figure out where something went wrong, but my brain won't cooperate because every time I reach for the details, all I get is the taste of her, the warmth of her skin, the way she used her body to speak to me.
Then I see her move. I'm so deep in my own freefall that I almost forget she's in one too. Her hands come up over her face. Her shoulders shake. She's crying again, and a wave of guilt crashes into me.
I sit on the edge of her bed. "Millie. Millie, I'm so sorry. I don't know…"
Nothing. I've got nothing. I'm a man who has never run out of words in his life, and I have absolutely nothing to offer this woman right now.
So I stay quiet. I let her cry. I sit there, and I do the one thing I've never been good at, which is just being still.
After a while, she reaches for her phone. Her hands tremble, and it takes her longer than usual to type. She turns the screen toward me.
It's not your fault.
I exhale. I didn't realize how much I was holding until she released it. She doesn't blame me. I still blame myself, but she doesn't, and right now that's enough to keep me upright.
I think about my mother. Eighteen years old. Pregnant with me. She raised me alone with nothing for six years. She did it because she wanted me, even when no one else did. I think about that, and I think about the woman sitting in front of me, and I know one thing for certain.
I take Millie's hand and look at her. "Whatever you decide, I'm here. If you want to keep the baby, I'm here. If you don't, I'm still here. This is your choice, Millie. And I'm not going anywhere. I'm here to support you."
She looks at me for a long time. Then she mouths thank you. Her eyes are still wet, but something in her face steadies.
My pager goes off. I glance at it, then back at her.
"I have to go check on a patient. But listen, some nurses are going to come by to take you for imaging so we can get a full picture of your injuries.
They'll take care of you." I pause. "And the other thing, the pregnancy, there's no rush.
Take your time. Think about it. Whatever you decide, we'll talk when you're ready. "
I squeeze her hand once. "I'll be back. I promise."
She nods. I let go and leave. In the hallway, I stop, lean against the wall, and close my eyes to breathe.
A baby. She's pregnant. I'm the father.
A few weeks ago, the biggest question in my life was whether I should start dating seriously.
Sarah was nagging me about it. Connor was giving me that look.
And then I met Millie, and for the first time, I actually thought maybe.
Maybe I could try. That's why I was disappointed when I woke up, and she was gone. Because I wanted more than one night.
And now that same woman is carrying our child. We skipped a few steps. Honestly, we skipped all of them. First date straight to parenthood. This was definitely not on my bingo card this year.
I push off the wall and keep moving. I have a job. The job doesn't care about my personal life. The job is the one thing I can always count on to hold still while everything else falls apart.
I send Millie for imaging with a note on the order: abdominal lead shielding, pregnancy confirmed, seven to eight weeks.
While she's in radiology, I check on two post-ops, review labs for a consult, keep moving.
My hands are steady, my voice is normal, and my brain works perfectly in every room that isn't hers.
The scans come back. I pull them up in the radiology reading room, alone, because if I go straight back to her, I won't see the injuries. I'll see her. And right now I need to be the doctor first.
Three fractured ribs, seven, eight, and nine on the left side.
Non-displaced, which means they'll heal on their own with time and pain management.
No surgical pinning needed. A small left-sided pneumothorax, tiny air leak where one of the fractures nicked the pleural lining.
Small enough to resolve with monitoring, no chest tube.
Costochondral bruising and intercostal muscle strain which is going to be the real problem.
That's the injury that lingers. Every breath, every movement, every laugh is going to hurt for weeks.
The cartilage and the muscles between the ribs take longer than the bones themselves.
And a mild concussion from the impact with the landing, which is part of why she lost consciousness and part of why we're keeping her for observation.
She slipped and fell off of a wet landing, alone, unable to call for help. She lay there until a neighbor found her. If that neighbor had come home twenty minutes later, Millie would have been on that landing for god knows how long. Hurt. Silent. With no way to tell anyone she was there.
I close the scans and go back to her.
She's awake, staring at the ceiling. When I pull the curtain back, she turns her head toward me. I sit on the stool beside her bed.
"How are you feeling?"
She gives me a thumbs down. Honest. I almost smile.
"I've got your scans back. I want to walk you through everything so you know exactly what we're dealing with. Okay?"
She nods.
I pull the images up on the monitor and go through it. She listens to all of it. Then she picks up her phone.
How long until I can play again?
"Six weeks minimum. Playing requires core strength, controlled breathing, and sustained posture. Right now your body can't do any of those things. I know that's not what you want to hear."
She absorbs that. Types again.
Can the pneumothorax get worse?
"It can, but it's unlikely. It's very small. We'll keep monitoring it, and it should resolve on its own within a few days."
She closes her eyes for a second. When she opens them, they're wet, but she's not crying. She nods. She mouths thank you, and I feel it land somewhere it shouldn't, somewhere past the professional line I'm supposed to be standing behind.
When I tell her she'll be here for a few days, I see it register. The weight of it. She types: I'm going to miss my programs.
"I know," I say. "I'm sorry. But your body needs this."
She nods and doesn't argue, but I can see it costs her.
I tell her to rest and walk out before my face gives away anything else. The curtain swings shut behind me, and the version of me that held it together in there doesn't make it to the other side. She's pregnant. With our child. And I have no idea what to do with that yet.
I said I'd support her either way, and I meant it. But I can't figure out which way I'm leaning. Both options terrify me for completely different reasons, and I'm not ready to look at either one too closely.
The hallway between patients is where it catches up to me. I'm standing in the break room staring at a wall, and I don't realize how long I'm there until someone says my name.
"Joseph."
Connor. He's the only person who calls me by my full name, besides my mother. He's got a chart under his arm and that look he gets when he's about to say something perceptive and unwelcome.
"You look distracted. Which is new. Something happen?"
I consider Connor my closest friend. He was there for every bad night and every good surgery. I was the best man at his wedding. If there's anyone I'd tell, it's him. But this is too new. There's another person involved. I'm still processing it myself.
"Nothing. Just tired. I'm actually sleeping with my eyes open. You should try it. Very effective. Bonus points if you're holding a chart because then people think you're hardworking when really you're unconscious."
"You're insane."
"Thank you."
He looks at me for a second longer than necessary. "If something's bothering you, you know you can talk to me."
And I almost break. Because Connor doesn't offer that easily. He used to be the most closed-off person I knew. Sarah changed that. Love changed that. The fact that he's standing here saying those words to me means something.
"I could kiss Sarah for how she's changed you. You're being all sweet now."
His expression shifts instantly to annoyance. "Don't."
I laugh. It feels good to laugh. It feels like the first normal thing I've done in hours.
"I appreciate that, man. Seriously. I'm good."
He doesn't believe me. I can see it. Connor has this way of looking at you where you can tell he's already figured out what you're not saying, and he's just deciding whether to let you get away with it. Today, he lets me get away with it. He'll circle back when I'm ready.
He walks off. I stand there another minute trying to put myself back together. Then I go back to work.
Later, after my shift ends, I change out of scrubs and go back to Millie's room.
She's moved from the ER to a regular room for observation.
The lights are dimmer. The monitors are quieter.
She's sitting up in bed, more alert than she was this morning.
The color is back in her face. Her phone is in her hand.
I knock on the open door frame. She looks up.
"Hey. How are you feeling?"
She types, then turns the screen toward me.
Better. Pain is down to a 7. Maybe 6 if I don't breathe too hard.
"That's progress." I sit in the chair beside her bed. "Did you eat? The nurse said they brought dinner."
She points to the tray. Half the food is gone. She types: Hospital mac and cheese. Two stars. Would not recommend.
I smile. "Yeah, the food here is a war crime. I'll bring you something real tomorrow."
Her thumbs move across the screen. She tilts it my way.
Thank you, Jo. For looking out for me. I know it's your job, but you make things less scary, and I appreciate it.
I read it twice. It's a small thing—Jo, the nickname slipping in like she's known me longer than she has—but it lands square in my chest and stays there. I look up at her and smile.
"It’s my job. But for the record, you're my favorite patient. Don't tell anyone. I'll get in trouble."
She smiles, small and tired. She starts typing again. This time it takes longer. Her fingers move, stop, delete, start over. When she finally lifts the phone between us, her hand is steady, and her eyes are clear.
Another thing. I thought about it and I want to keep the baby.
The air goes out of me.