Chapter 2
Grace pulled into the staff parking lot at the hospital and jogged through the downpour. She stepped into the ER, an air of urgency and chaos instantly apparent, and she could see why she’d been called in on her day off.
She flagged down a passing doctor. “Where do you need me?”
The chief resident looked harried, sweat on her brow and her blonde hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. “Trauma one, hit-and-run, pedestrians versus van. Young couple, two babies. Husband died at the scene, wife’s hanging on.”
Memories surfaced from Grace’s mind like tentacles darting through inky black water. Her throat constricted, and she forced her words past the sudden knot. “Are the kids okay?”
“Miraculously. J’von’s got them in the lounge. ” The doctor walked away, calling over her shoulder, “The parents were carrying them in their car seats. Protected them from the impact.”
Adrenaline controlled Grace’s limbs as she pushed into the trauma area, falling into step with the rest of the team as she’d done countless times before, but this time was different, the image of two little babies held firmly in her mind.
Babies who might lose their parents in a car accident, just as she had lost her own.
Babies whose lives would be forever changed, just as hers had been.
There was a frantic quality to her movements, an urgency beyond critical care.
Flashes, images from childhood pierced her awareness as she worked.
A birth certificate tucked neatly in a drawer, a folder filled with photographs of strangers.
She knew firsthand what it meant to be orphaned at a young age, alone in a world meant to be navigated with a parent, and she desperately wanted this woman to live.
Her stare homed in on the monitor, the erratic electrical activity of the woman’s heart on full display.
Those children needed their mother, but she was fading quickly, the life-sustaining efforts of the team failing to win the tug-of-war that pulled her closer to death.
And there wasn’t a damn thing Grace could do about it.
She followed orders without thinking, drawing another dose of epinephrine and injecting it into the line. “You have to make it,” she urged the woman on the table. “Your babies need you.”
“Clear!” yelled the doctor, placing the defibrillator paddles on the woman’s chest and shocking her heart. But with each failed attempt at life, it became stunningly, painfully clear this woman’s children would soon be alone. A tear slid down Grace’s cheek and she let it fall.
The doctor cursed, trying the paddles several more times in earnest, but the woman’s heart refused to beat on its own. With a heavy sigh, he dropped the paddles onto the crash cart and declared, “I’m calling it. Time of death, one thirteen a.m.”
Grace’s arms fell to her sides. She’d seen people die.
Many people. In her line of work, it was common to see men and women make the difficult transition from life to death.
She imagined it helped her deal with her past, put her own parents’ deaths in some kind of perspective, but today she was gutted just thinking about those children.
The trauma room was quiet. Machines flicked off. Tubing disconnected as members of the team walked away. Grace stood alone until she was the last person in the room. Aware of the blood on her hands, on her shirt. The tears running down her face.
Tragedies occur every day.
She moved to the locker room and showered, hands shaking, barely aware of the world around her. She needed to see the babies herself, put her hands on them. She needed to be clean for the children, to wash their mother’s blood off her body before standing in front of them.
There’s no reason for you to find them.
You should leave them alone.
But she needed them like she couldn’t explain, needed to hold them. Oh, she knew it was a bad idea. Her mind had sewn together this accident and her parents’ deaths with a tight, sure stitch. Nothing good could come from seeing the babies.
Perhaps if she took a long enough shower, social services would arrive first and take them away. That would be better, no matter how much she wanted to touch them, connect with them at this divisive moment she’d lived through herself.
She showered until she was dizzy from the heat. She dressed in clean scrubs and went in search of them. The ER had calmed down like the ocean after a storm, staff taking the time to regroup, restock, prepare for the next disaster. But Grace needed something else entirely.
“Grace.”
She turned to find John standing by the nurses’ station. She frowned. “What are you doing here?”
He moved to her and kissed her cheek, taking her hands in his.
“Work.” He occasionally came to the hospital to visit members of the congregation or help deliver difficult news.
She didn’t think she could handle any more sad stories tonight, so she didn’t ask for details.
She was emotionally exhausted from trying to save that mother and irrationally irked that he was here. “Are you okay?” he asked.
She bristled. He knew about her parents, of course, but she had no desire to explain what she had been through tonight, what she was feeling in that moment. “Rough shift.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” She pulled her hands away, already feeling guilty for not being warmer, more grateful for his presence, more loving. She forced a small smile onto her face. “Can we talk tomorrow?”
He took her hand again and brought it to his lips. “Of course. I’m looking forward to our dinner.”
She watched him walk away, Brett Champion’s parting words to her echoing in her mind like a taunt.
He’s a good man.
Just a good, good man.
She shook her head. Champion had gotten to her, all right. But she had more important things to worry about right then. She headed for the lounge, the high-pitched shriek of an infant in the distance seeming to call her like a siren’s wail.
She pushed into the room. An orderly rocked a howling baby in his arms, and he turned to Grace with a pleading stare. “Tell me social services is here.”
“No.” She crossed to him. “But I can take over for a while.”
He handed the baby over with obvious relief. “According to his shirt, this is Theo,” he said. “He cries every time I put him down and sometimes for no good reason at all. I changed him, I fed him, I rocked him. He’s just one unhappy little dude.”
Grace took the squealing Theo and lifted him to her shoulder, the sweet weight of his little body feeling good against her chest and the scent of his skin seeming somehow familiar. He settled instantly. The insanity that had been building inside her began to ease.
J’von pointed to a second sleeping infant in a rolling bassinet. “That one’s Toby. He’s pretty chill.”
“You look exhausted,” she said. “Go on. I’ve got this.”
“You sure they don’t need you out there?”
The ER had calmed considerably, and she doubted she’d be missed. Besides, she felt connected to these children. Responsible. Attached by the invisible cord of shared experience. “I’m sure.” He left and Grace walked to the window, swaying with the infant. She couldn’t see past the darkness and rain.
Theo’s impossibly small chest rose and fell rhythmically. Who would take care of these babies now? Who would help them grow up, give them a home, love them unconditionally? Her eyes burned again. So many tears she’d shed over the years, and there never seemed to be an end to them.
The Bryants had adopted her, given her a family and a life that, from the outside, looked perfect. But she’d always wondered what her life would have been like if her parents had lived, the unanswered question leaving a permanent scar on Grace’s soul.
She kissed the top of the baby’s head, inhaling his scent. A tear rolled down her cheek and onto his head. Her breath hitched, and she wished she could take them home and keep them safe forever.
“You must have family who loves you. Grandmas and grandpas and uncles and aunts…” She settled on the couch, minutes melting into hours as she cared for the boys, feeding them, burping them, holding them.
“I hope you find a family that loves you just as much as mine loves me,” she whispered, suddenly feeling sleepy. “And I hope you don’t have to go through hell to get there.” She propped pillows on either side of her body and cradled the sleeping brothers against her chest.