Chapter 3 #4
He looks terrible. His bright hair sticks up all over his head. His eyes are fiery and wild. Stubble gilds his chin, and his shirt is buttoned wrong.
I burst into tears, and then he is on the gurney, wrapping his arms around me as if Jesse, I, and the baby are a family of nesting dolls, each of us containing someone we love. “It’s okay,” Jesse soothes, but his voice hitches.
“It is okay,” I murmur, because he doesn’t know yet. “Jesse, the contractions stopped.”
He collapses into himself. “Thank God.”
We cling to each other. “I shouldn’t have been out in the storm,” I admit.
“Ssh,” Jesse says, his thumb skating the line of my throat. “I should never have left you here alone.”
His words startle me out of our private bubble. “I wasn’t alone,” I say, turning. But the chair in the cubicle is empty; Georgia has taken her purse and coat and silently slipped away.
I do not think there is anyone less suited to bed rest than I am.
On the bright side, Dr. Mantillard said I don’t have to remain in bed for the rest of the pregnancy—-just five days.
She came to see me in the hospital, after I was admitted overnight.
If the contractions stay at bay and the fetal heartbeat remains steady, then I can resume what she calls “light duties.”
Jesse says that means desk work. Before I can even complain or negotiate, Toby presents me with a revised schedule that takes me off on--call rotation and out of the field.
Toby also visited me in the hospital, tortured by the fact that I was one of the numbers on a spreadsheet of accidents and falls and casualties and he didn’t know. “You should have called me,” he insisted.
“If the situation were reversed, would you have called me?”
“I would have called my PCP and asked how I got pregnant,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes. “Not funny.”
“No,” Toby agreed, sobering. “It wasn’t.” With those words, he conveyed all the fear my whole department had experienced, hearing about my hospitalization. “I don’t want your job,” he reminded me. “So I’m damn well going to cover for you now, so you get healthy enough to come back.”
In my convalescence, I watch a lot of reality television, which reminds me why I do not watch reality television.
I read the CDC Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report, a report that I never have time to read and that is my absolute jam, but after two days I’ve plowed through all the back issues.
I do all the New York Times online games, and I bring my email inbox down to zero unread.
Occasionally I run a Teams meeting, but it’s clear that Toby is currently in charge.
Jesse comes home for lunch and leaves work in time for dinner. We play chess and Monopoly and Risk, games that used to get interrupted by an emergency call.
By the third day, I’m so bored I understand why a fox will chew off its own leg to get out of a trap.
On the fifth day, I am given leave to return to normal activities—-within limits.
No lifting, no running, nothing that could put me in the path of danger.
This is particularly ironic given my job, but at this point, I’ll take it.
We mark my release from bed rest by going out to dinner with my dad and Evie.
For as long as I can remember she has bemoaned the fact that Christmas is the same day as her birthday—-which is why I always try to plan something special to celebrate her.
Between courses, they’ve been showing us pictures of their trip to Hawaii—-complete with Evie in a hula class, and a video of my father’s thumb that was meant to be the final heat of a world--class surf competition.
“Oh, and we went to a black sand beach!” Evie says.
“I saw one of those in Iceland,” Jesse replies. “Volcanic, right?”
While they get absorbed in a conversation about lava, I turn to my father. “What was your favorite part?”
“The Dole plantation,” he says after a moment. “My granddad was stationed near there during World War II. He was training for a land invasion of Japan, which didn’t happen because of the bomb.”
“I didn’t know he was in the army.”
“Yeah,” my father replies, thoughtful. “If his platoon had done what they were supposed to, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be here.”
“Me neither.”
He shakes his head. “It’s funny, isn’t it? All the lives we don’t live.”
“Wait. While you were in Maui, you looked into a time--share?” Jesse’s voice cuts across the table.
“Looked,” Evie clarifies. “But I told your father that I’m not living five thousand miles away from my granddaughter.”
As if to punctuate that, the baby lands a firm kick. “That granddaughter is tap--dancing on my bladder,” I say, getting to my feet. “I’ll be right back.”
Jesse immediately stands.
I spear him with a hard look. “I hope that you suddenly have a need to pee, too. Because if you were thinking that I ought to be escorted like a toddler to the bathroom, which is less than thirty feet from here, I would be incredibly disappointed.”
Slowly, Jesse sinks back into his chair. “Be careful,” he mutters.
I weave through the maze of tables and chairs to the private back room of the restaurant, where the bathrooms are located. A party is in full swing. I see baby blue balloons, and one giant Mylar one in the shape of a stork.
The pregnant woman being showered catches my eye and smiles, nodding toward my belly in a silent acknowledgment.
Following her gaze, the woman with whom she has been talking turns around.
It takes a moment for my brain to catch up and realize that I know her.
But then, I’ve never seen Georgia outside of Dr. Mantillard’s office, or the hospital.
She steps away from her pregnant friend, and I throw my arms around her and hug her tight. “Georgia, I owe you the biggest thank--you. I wish you hadn’t left the hospital so quickly.”
“That was time for the two of you. You didn’t need me around,” she says. Then she smiles wide. “It is really good to see you up and around. You’re doing well? And the baby?”
“Yeah, we’re both fine. Today’s my first official day off bed rest.”
A woman approaches and gives us each a safety pin. “Put these on,” she instructs. “It’s going to be part of a game later. Whoever collects the most gets a prize!” Then she’s off to the next guest, like a bee leaping to the throat of another flower.
I hand Georgia the safety pin. “Take mine. Look, you’re already winning.”
Her lips twist. “It’s my neighbor. The woman who’s pregnant.”
“The one who stole your cat?”
“Yes.” She laughs.
A silence falls between us. “Well, listen. I don’t want to keep you from your party. I just . . . I can’t explain how much I appreciate you being there for me when I needed it.”
She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “You just did.”
“Molly?”
I look over her shoulder to see my father approaching.
“Everything all right? You were gone long enough that Jesse started to panic, but then he thought if he came to check on you, you might run him through with your steak knife, so I volunteered—-”
“I’m fine. I just ran into a friend.” Because that’s what she is now, after that night in the hospital. “Georgia, this is my dad, Adam.”
It happens so fast, but it feels like an eternity. Like the moment I fell on the ice, like the collapse of two buildings, like the space between life and death.
Georgia turns. My father’s face goes white as bone. “Eloise?” he says.