15. Omar
Chapter fifteen
Omar
I’d lost count of the number of times I’d heard nurses curse how many patients they were assigned or how busy they were. They often complained of missing lunch or never getting a chance to breathe before the bloody buzzer sounded again, another patient demanding their attention.
In my humble opinion, these were “rich people problems.”
We signed up to serve. Our lives were dedicated to helping those in need, those ill or injured, those desperate for relief and respite. Sure, we enjoyed a little down time as much as anyone, but the patients were why we were nurses. They were the reason we studied for years and wore the same loose-fitting, fashionless outfit day after day.
So, when I had a day in which no babies were born just healthy enough to enter my ward, and all those who’d enjoyed my tender care had gone home, I didn’t know what to do. Even Steel Bun seemed perplexed. Fortunately, she was too busy handling an influx of Level Two and Three babies to look my way. I was sure, if she had, she would have given me a million tiny, mindless tasks to consume my day.
Sitting behind the high-top counter, staring at the wall monitor and my blank section, I almost wished for my mistress’s task list.
Before a serious fit of daydreaming could take hold, I grabbed my phone and texted.
Me : Miss me yet?
I stared, waiting for the dots to dance. They refused. Matty was probably drowning in coughs and broken bones. It was strange, me thinking to text him in my moment of need. I never needed anyone. Being an only child of diplomat parents did that to a bloke.
And yet, since our first date a few weeks ago, I couldn’t stop thinking about blond curls and toothy grins. Matty and I had only been out three additional times, our schedules refusing to align with our desired dating lives; but on those evenings, in the time we shared chatting and laughing, occasionally touching and kissing, I’d fallen hard.
Not that I would admit that to anyone.
We Brits did not fall.
We certainly did not fall hard.
We admired another at a reasonable pace, allowing them to appreciate our sensibility and refinement in due course.
What the hell? I was crazy about Matty. Everything, from his goofy grin when he said something funny to the way he was so “over the top” to turn heads made me want to spend more time with him. In my twenty-seven years of life, I couldn’t remember a single person who made me smile and laugh as often as that boy.
Except Teto.
But she didn’t count. She was not a boy.
The strangest part of my fascination with Matty was that I’d never found effeminate guys attractive. I wasn’t into meatheads like his friend Elliot or my firefighter guys, but someone who swished and swayed tended to be off-putting to my conservative upbringing.
Still, for whatever reason, I was smitten, and I couldn’t wait to hear what silliness fell out of my guy’s mouth the next time I saw him.
My guy.
Holy shit.
I hadn’t said it out loud. It was all in my mind. But when the voice in one’s head speaks, doesn’t that count as that person speaking? Or is that odd, unnamed gremlin uttering nonsense that counts for nothing?
It couldn’t be nothing.
It was in my head.
Besides, when that voice spoke those words, my whole body tingled and filled with a campfire’s warmth.
Matty was my guy.
The warmth flared, and I found my cheeks stinging with a face-splitting smile.
“Someone’s in a good mood,” Carlie startled me out of a year’s growth. “How’s Matty?”
I gathered myself.
Who was I kidding? Her asking about Matty sent me to a new level of giddiness. I spun my chair around so we faced each other and bounced up and down, straining the hydraulics of my seat.
“Carlie, I think I like him. I mean, I think I’m ‘in like’ with him. Seriously. I can’t stop thinking about him, and when I close my eyes, I see his face and want to push the curl off his forehead. I can hear his voice in my dreams—which are in color, by the way—which is odd because I dream in sepia tones, like old greeting cards from the nineteenth century. But no, my dreams of Matty are in full, brilliant color, just like him in real life.” I sucked in a breath because I hadn’t breathed since opening my mouth.
Carlie clutched her clipboard and blinked, looking a bit like someone who’d just had a car back over their foot, right before the pain set in.
That made me think of the ER.
Which made me think of Matty.
Which made me grin.
“Oh, wow. This might be the most severe case I’ve seen in years.” She bent down and placed the back of one hand to my forehead. “Temp feels normal.” She placed fingers on my neck. “Pulse is racing.”
I shook my head at her faux examination.
She cupped my cheek and beamed. “Omar, you are the kindest, sweetest man I know. Really. If anyone deserves to be this happy, it’s you. I can’t wait to meet this Matty of yours.”
Matty of mine.
Those weren’t words spoken in my head. She’d said them aloud. Did that make them extra real or true or . . .
“You haven’t had a baby on your board all morning, have you?” she asked, glancing up.
I shook my head. “No, and that much time with nothing to do is killing me.”
She chuckled. “Looks like it’s giving you time to brood over a boy.”
“Maybe a little.” We shared a laugh.
She paused, then her grin smoothed. “Have you visited Level Three yet?”
“No, Steel Bun has kept me too busy.”
“I heard that!” Olivia’s voice was a whip-crack across the room.
Carlie and I stifled laughs and shared a conspiratorial, slightly guilty, look.
“You should go see the other levels. It’s more of the same, but very different. The amount of care we have to give those babies is unlike almost anything in the hospital.”
I thought a moment. “A little tour sounds interesting. Besides, if I sit here any longer, my buttocks will grow roots, and that would be a bad look.”
“Very bad.” She patted my arm and chuckled. “If anything happens here, or if a baby comes in, I’ll text you.”
“Thanks, Carlie,” I said, standing. “I won’t stay, just long enough to get a feel.”
“Take your time.” With that, Carlie stepped away to continue whatever task I’d interrupted.
Level Two took up the same end of the wing as Level One, so I decided to wander down the opposite hallway, past the elevators that whisked me away toward home, and visit the most serious cases in Level Three. I knew from my studies and time in scrubs that a Level Three unit handled all degrees of prematurity and babies with congenital malformations. These specialized sections had their own pediatric surgeons, anesthesiologists, and pediatric ophthalmologists.
To make things simple for laypeople, the hospital’s signage below the giant “Level III” described the unit’s services as “life support and comprehensive care for infants born before thirty-two weeks that weigh less than three point three pounds.”
Three point three pounds.
I stared at those words, failing to comprehend just how small those babies must be. Of course, I had seen them in videos and textbooks, but that was back when I was a student. I had never been in a Level Three area or handled a baby that small.
Suddenly, standing there at a junction of two of the floor’s major arteries, I wondered if I had the stomach to continue my afternoon’s quest for knowledge. Something about the description on the signage, coupled with a bit of the unknown, made me question if the NICU was my path. Could I handle what lay ahead?
“Going in?”
I turned to find a brunette in bright pink scrubs standing by the double doors, badge in hand. The name Jeanette was surrounded by happy stickers of cartoon bears, dogs, ducks, and cats. A pin affixed to her lanyard read, “Mother he—I could tell by his wristband he was a boy—was also injured and ill.
What had happened?
I leaned down, as if inches would help me see or connect or—I don’t know. I needed to be closer to him. I couldn’t explain it.
“His name is Josh.”
I startled and straightened to find a woman—more a girl—standing in the doorway holding a cup of coffee. Steam rose from a hole in the to-go-style lid. The girl couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. Dark circles lined her eyes, and a purpling bruise covered one cheek.
“Are you our new nurse?” she asked.
“Oh, no. I work in Level One. I was just . . . I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have disturbed you.” I stepped around the incubator toward the door, but the girl didn’t move out of my way.
“But you’re a nurse? You help babies?”
My heart stilled as I nodded.
“Josh is my boy. My baby boy.” The girl’s eyes fixed on Josh, and her lip began to quiver. The cup in her hand began shaking so much I feared she might spill hot coffee all over herself.
Without thinking, I reached out and braced her hand. “Why don’t you sit and tell me about him? Would that be okay?”
She looked up, her eyes full to brimming, her composure teetering. Then she nodded and let me lead her across the room to the recliner. I rolled the doc’s stool to sit beside her.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Emily.”
“Emily, that’s a beautiful name. I’m Omar.”
She blinked at me, sucking in breaths to keep tears at bay.
“From what I can see, Josh is a little fighter.”
Her smile was as tiny as her son, but it brightened the room. “He is.”
“Looks like you might’ve seen a fight or two yourself,” I said, eyeing her bruise.
She reached up as if to touch it, then pulled her fingers away and lowered her head.
“Emily, it’s all right if you don’t want to talk about any of this. I’m just visiting, seeing what Level Three is all about. I work on the other end of the hall in Level One.” She looked up, and I could tell she wondered where I was going with all this. “But if you do want to talk, if you need someone you can confide in, I’m a safe place. I can be your friend down the hall.”
I smiled, trying to reassure her. She stared a heartbeat, then her head drooped again.
We sat there for the longest time, Emily staring at her untouched coffee, the monitor beeping its ceaseless rhythm, and me, lost in thought, wondering how a small girl and her tiny boy could make me feel so deeply.
The silence stretched until footfalls behind made both of us look back toward the door.
“I see you met Josh and Emily,” Jeanette said, brushing past us to check Josh’s vitals.
I nodded, then turned to Emily. “I meant what I said, okay?”
She looked up, her eyes wide and watery, and I felt her anguish in my bones. As I stood to leave, her fingers, ice cold despite holding steaming coffee, clamped on my wrist.
“Could you . . . would you stay a little longer?”
My eyes darted to Jeanette, wondering just how far I’d stepped over the line. She glanced back over her shoulder, a smile tugging her lips, and nodded once. “Omar, could you help me with something?”
I patted Emily’s hand, then freed my wrist and joined Jeanette at Josh’s side.
“How can I help?”
“Would you reach inside and let Josh grip your finger?”
I hadn’t noticed the baby wake, but when I looked down, soupy eyes stared up. Unsure how letting him grip my finger helped with Jeanette’s routine, but unwilling to resist the one who’d given me the tour, I stuck my hand in the porthole and inched my index finger toward Josh’s infinitesimally small hand. The moment our skin collided, he latched on. The boy had an iron grip.
Jeanette’s laugh was honey. “He’s stronger than he looks, isn’t he?”
I shook my head, unable to speak.
“He’s been with us for two weeks now. I expect this will be his home for another few months. He was born so early that many of his organs haven’t fully formed. What he needs, more than any medicine or treatment, is time to rest and grow.” She tapped a few notes on her portable station’s keyboard, then locked eyes with me again. “And he needs to feel loved.”
I swallowed hard and felt electricity flow from Josh’s little body into mine.
Never, in my years as a nurse, had a patient affected me so.
I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe. All I could do was stare down into the eyes of a helpless human and pour my will to live into whatever bond was forming between us.
“Can you stay a minute?” Jeanette asked. “I need to get something but don’t want to leave them alone.”
“Sure, of course. I don’t think he’ll let go, in any case.”
Jeanette smiled and left the room.