21. Omar
Chapter twenty-one
Omar
My shift ended at four o’clock. Matty’s didn’t end until six. In theory, I could drive home, relax a bit, freshen up, then return to pick him up for our evening’s dinner; but that seemed like a waste. By the time I fought Atlanta rush-hour traffic both ways, I would barely have time to change before piling back into my car. What was the point in that?
So, wandering with two hours to kill, my feet led me to a familiar door: the entrance to NICU Level Three. I wasn’t sure how well the staff of this advanced unit would take a random visitor, even one wearing the tag of an RN, but I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to see baby Josh, to make sure he was all right, to hold his tiny little hand and let him squeeze my finger.
Jeanette had let me in before, using her badge and holding the door. I had no idea if my badge would work on another department’s entry. Reluctantly, I swiped and waited. A green light appeared, and the double doors clicked and began to open.
Well, they aren’t keeping me out. I’ll take that as permission.
I walked past rows of rooms, beyond the central nurse’s station where a few bored-looking women in bright pink scrubs barely looked up to acknowledge my presence.
The door to Josh’s room stood open, just like before.
Emily, the teen-looking mom with cruise ship-sized baggage under her eyes, lay sleeping in the recliner.
Jeanette hovered above Josh. Her head snapped up as I filled the doorway.
“Come in,” she mouthed without speaking, her smile filling me with welcome warmth. She held her index finger over her lips and eyed Emily. I nodded and stepped across the room, careful to make as little noise as possible.
“Welcome back,” Jeanette said through a radiant smile. “Our little champ is fighting the good fight.”
We both looked down at the infant in his plastic box. He looked so tiny, so innocent, so vulnerable, as if a stiff breeze could carry him away, and he would be lost to us forever. His eyes shifted beneath pink lids. What did infants dream? They’d barely lived in our world. What could their subconscious mind possibly process—or even know to process? I suddenly wished technology could broadcast a person’s thoughts or sleeping visions on a screen or wall. I would love to know what made the little man’s eyes move.
“Go on, wash up and let him hold your finger. I know you want to.” Jeanette’s entire aura radiated love and compassion. I’d seen it before, but she’d been busy. Here, with only the two of us working hard to keep everyone asleep, Jeanette’s true beauty was on full display. She wasn’t simply a caregiver or medical provider; she was an angel sent to soothe the aches of mankind.
All right, perhaps that was a tad melodramatic, but as a gay man, I had that right. In fact, it was more than a right; it was an obligation. Think of it like a Samurai’s mandate to protect his Daimyo or a knight fighting for his lord. It was on my gay card, on the back, in the fine print. The paragraph began with, “Yaaasss, bitches . . .”
Read it and weep.
A little more confidently than I had that first time, I reached my hand into the porthole and brushed Josh’s wispy hair. There was barely enough to groom. The poor little guy might grow up bald as a bowling ball. Still, he was adorable, and my heart ached to pick him up and cradle him in my arms.
He stirred, and one eye popped open. Eventually, the other eye joined the first, blinking away sleep and trying to focus. A tiny, meaty hand waved in the air, slapped my wrist, then found my fingers and latched on. Josh’s head turned slightly, and he smushed his face into my hand.
“He remembers you. Probably smells you,” Jeanette said. “He’s comfortable with you, Omar.”
My heart filled with something foreign as I stared down at the tiny person grasping my finger. I knew he couldn’t see well, definitely not well enough to recognize me through the plexiglass, but he tried. His eyes homed in on me and locked in place. I couldn’t have taken my gaze from his if the world lit on fire. He held me, fixed me in place, and I loved the moment so much.
“That’s a beautiful smile,” Jeanette said.
I stared. Josh wasn’t smiling. He was just lying there, squeezing my finger, following our voices with his eyes. Curious, I looked up.
“Your smile, silly, not his. You were beaming.”
“I . . . I can’t help it. He’s just . . .”
“I know.” She reached across the bassinet and patted my arm. “But that’s also the hard part of this unit. They’re all so tiny and cute, and they need so much care to have a shot at making it. It’s hard not to fall in love with every baby that comes here, but we have to stay detached, at least part of us does; otherwise, the losses would tear us apart.”
“Losses,” I said, tasting bile with the word. “I guess I didn’t think about those.”
“They’re rare in Level One, but here . . .” She finished whatever she was adjusting on Josh’s monitor, then turned back to me. “Too many of the babies who come to Level Three don’t leave. Those born at twenty-two weeks or earlier have less than a one-in-four chance. I love my work—I really do—but it can be heartbreaking.”
I knew the numbers. The stats were drilled into us in nursing school, then again when I started at Grady Hospital a few years ago. Still, standing there in the room of a preemie and his mother, letting the baby hold my finger, those statistics felt more . . . real. There were faces and dreams and hopes and tiny fingers behind each of those wins and losses. This was personal for families.
It was personal for nurses, too.
The joy I’d felt when Josh took my finger twisted with anguish, and I silently prayed to anyone who might listen, Please let this one make it .
Jeanette paused her routine and stared, watching me struggle and process.
“Josh is strong. He’s a fighter. His mom hasn’t left his side, and, while she has her own issues, that’s a lot more than I can say of many parents.” She reached into the porthole opposite and adjusted Josh’s blanket.
Emily chose that moment to wake, her movement squeaking against the faux leather of the recliner.
“Oh, hi,” she said, sitting upright and stretching. “Sorry, I kind of drifted off. Is he—”
“Josh is doing great. He woke up for his special visitor,” Jeanette said.
“Hi.” I waved my non-baby-finger-holding hand.
“Omar? That’s your name, right?” Emily asked.
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Emily laughed and waved her hands like she was shooing bugs. “I’m eighteen. Nobody calls me ma’am.”
Eighteen.
The moment somehow became even heavier than before. How had the air suddenly thickened, grown oppressively unbreathable? Why did the non-collar on my scrub suddenly feel like it was choking me?
“Okay, Emily. Is it okay to call you that?” I croaked.
“It’s my name,” she said in an almost prepubescent tone, then stood and joined us at Josh’s crib. I made to pull my hand out so she could reach in, but Emily’s fingers gripped my forearm, holding me in place. “Don’t. He likes you.”
I had no idea how to respond. This poor mother . . . and child. God, what had they endured to be stuck in a hospital room, one fighting for his life, while the other watched and prayed, helpless and clinging to hope?
The snap of Jeanette removing her exam gloves drew both our gazes. As she tossed the used latex into the trash bin, she said, “I need to go make some notes. I’ll be back in a bit, all right? Do you need anything, Emily?”
Emily shook her head. “No, we’re fine. I’ll wait until you come back to get something to eat.”
Jeanette stepped around Josh, patted my shoulder, then left the room.
Emily’s hand was still gripping my forearm. I looked down to find a tear snaking down her cheek.
“Emily?”
Before I could blink, the girl slumped against my side and began to cry. I freed my finger from Josh’s grip and wrapped my arms around her, holding her head to my chest. Her whole body heaved as she sobbed.
I couldn’t think of words as moisture stung my own eyes.
“Please, keep coming back, Omar. Keep holding his hand. He needs you.”
“Emily, I’m just a nurse—”
Her head snapped up, and tear-streaked eyes locked on to mine. “Not to him, you’re not. I’m his mother. I can feel it. He’s stronger after you visit.”
I’d only been to see Josh a few times now. Each time had been the same. He gripped my finger for five, maybe ten, minutes, Jeanette fiddled with the millions of things keeping him stable, and Emily watched in silence from the recliner. This was the first time she’d spoken more than a word in greeting. I’d wondered if she was engaged in her son’s recovery or if she was a passive bystander.
The deluge of emotion battering my senses through our embrace told me how deeply this girl loved her boy, how terrified she was of losing him, and how she, too, needed support and strength.
That was the day, the very moment, I learned the most important lesson I would ever know in my nursing career.
There wasn’t one patient in that room.
There were two.