Chapter 57 Daisy - Semantics #2
For now, I ushered Drew, Sarah, and Cheryl out and walked into the nursery.
Ever so gently, I lifted my girl out of her crib.
I held her close, rocking her, the stream of moonlight through the window illuminating her sweet face.
Physical pain gripped me knowing this was it.
I was going to have to say goodbye. A sob caught in my throat as I imagined giving her up.
I pulled her in closer and let my tears fall.
I knew I should be happy for her, but, instead, I felt devastated, as heartbroken as I could ever remember feeling.
As she slept, I rocked and cried, mourned all the life that could have been.
I knew, logically, that this was what was best for Maisy.
I knew that she would have a wonderful life.
But I couldn’t help but wonder: When would it be my turn?
When would I get to finally have what was best for me?
The next day, I almost turned around when I saw Julie standing on my floor of the hospital, by the nurses’ station.
I was taking my much-needed lunch break after a morning of an unanticipated oxygen drop for one of my patients and collaborating with one of my least favorite occupational therapists for another patient.
The very last thing I wanted was to deal with Julie.
But, then again, I’d had some time to mull over what she had said, the gifts she had left me.
And I knew that if I wanted a relationship with Julie—which I did, I really did—I was going to have to leave the past in the past. I would never truly understand why she did what she did.
I would never be able to fully grasp it.
But I’d exhibited some erratic behavior lately, to say the least. So I could give her the benefit of the doubt.
She smiled when she saw me. How did she manage to look so damn normal?
“Sorry to bother you at work,” Julie said. She took my hands and squeezed them. “Cheryl told me about Maisy, and I wanted to check on you.”
The moment she said Maisy, I felt breathless with grief. I nodded bravely and said what was true, avoiding that maybe it was the tiniest dig. “I’m heartbroken, but I know what it’s like to grow up without a mother, and I never want that for Maisy.”
Julie looked down at her feet, her face reddening, and I was a little embarrassed. This wasn’t her fault. But so many other things were that I didn’t feel that bad about making her uncomfortable.
Julie cleared her throat and looked back up at me. “I really wanted to share something with you.”
I took a deep breath. If I played along, this would be over more quickly. Then, out of the corner of my eye, coming through the elevator door was a woman who looked familiar. I thought I recognized her. I squinted. If she were thirty pounds heavier with no makeup…
“Daisy!” she said, running to me. I would have recognized that voice anywhere. “Abbott,” I said quietly. The mother I had let down, the one whose baby I had loved like my own, the one we had lost together.
As she hugged me, she absolutely fell apart.
And so did I. As we squeezed each other tightly, I realized that she and I had fought a battle together that no one else in the world would ever understand.
Maybe her husband. Maybe. But we were bound together in our womanness, in the connection we felt to a baby she grew inside of herself for nine agonizing months of uncertainty, a baby whose first—and last—breaths I had witnessed.
We were bound by that, and there was no space for anger, no reason for it.
“Thank you so much,” she whispered into my ear.
I pulled away, tears flowing down my cheeks, not bothering to wipe them.
They were mostly for baby Brian, for this woman in front of me, but I knew that they were also for Maisy, for knowing that my time with her was coming to an end.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.
I’m so sorry that I didn’t take care of you after. I had my own stuff and I just—”
She shook her head and squeezed my forearms. “Daisy, you did the thing I wasn’t brave enough to do.” Her voice caught as she said, “You loved my boy in his last moments so that I got to be the one to remember his whole, perfect, beating heart, not his silent one.”
Looking at her devastated face, I couldn’t imagine how I could have blamed her then, how I could not have understood her wishes.
And I scolded myself because, really, it wasn’t my job to understand.
It wasn’t my job to cast blame. It was my job to care for my patients.
And, well, it was very clear that time and time again, I had overstepped.
“I loved your boy, Abbott. I will always love him.”
“I feel him, you know? It’s like he’s sending me little signs.”
Maisy. Maisy was my little sign. Maybe she, a baby I could save, was a gift from Brian, the baby I could not. No, I wasn’t going to get to keep her forever, but I had given her a great beginning. And that was something.
She put her hands on her belly. “Like this little one.”
I hugged Abbott again. “That is amazing news!”
I was happy for her, but it didn’t ease the sting of the babies we had lost.
“I feel like I’m getting a second chance,” she said.
We exchanged information and promises to keep in touch, and, when she left, I turned to hug Julie, my heart thawing toward her.
“Thank you,” I said. “That was…” I put my hand to my chest, feeling myself getting choked up again.
So rarely in life do we get true resolution, actual closure. Julie had made that happen.
“I never want you to hurt again, Daisy. Anything I can do from here on out to make your life better, I’m going to do. As much as you’ll let me.”
I believed her. And maybe I even forgave her a little. I couldn’t see sleepovers and braiding each other’s hair in our imminent future, but she had shown me today—and with the gifts I had never received—that she had thought of me.
“Want half of an egg salad sandwich?” I asked.
She smiled. “I can’t think of anything better.”
I linked my arm in hers as we walked toward the break room. I reached in my purse and pulled out my keys to show Julie.
“Thanks for this,” I said, smiling.
She put her hand over her mouth, and her eyes filled. “You got it?”
“I got like fifteen gifts from you all at once a few days ago. So you’re covered for my birthday this year.”
Sandy walked in and grabbed a bottle of water.
She nodded, and I nodded back. She was a great nurse.
One of the best I’d ever worked with. But she and I were different too.
I thought about Brian and Abbott and Maisy, and the hundreds of babies and mothers who had passed through my care these past eight years.
I would always care for them, yes. But, if I was really honest with myself, I would break the rule: because I loved them.
Each and every one, down to the very tips of my toes, in a way that made my heart ache.
And I had to think that maybe that was a little bit because of the woman beside me.
I wanted to love everyone who came into my path in a way that I had never felt loved, and, thinking of Abbott, I knew that I had helped a lot of patients because of that.
It didn’t heal what was between Julie and me.
It didn’t fix it. But, I had to admit as I pulled my lunch box out of the fridge, as I felt a little bit happy for her company, it was a start.