12. Josh
Chapter twelve
Josh
The charge nurse is already at the far end of the hall, chart tucked under one arm, moving like she has three other fires waiting. Leaving me with the word wife.
Liv is at the window, both hands on the stroller handlebar. Iris asleep in the seat below her, chin tucked to her chest.
Liv's face is calm. Too calm. Her fingers tighten once on the stroller handle, then loosen before anyone else would notice.
I notice.
I also notice the resident beside me pretending not to notice, which means the whole hallway might as well have been fitted with stadium seating.
I step up beside Liv and face the corridor.
“I’ve got them from here.”
The resident hears me. I don’t look at him. He steps back anyway.
Through the glass, Huang, my senior resident, is still at the case board with the group. Marker in hand. I catch his eye.
“You know how to reach me if you need me.”
He nods once and turns back to the board. I let the heavy door swing shut.
Liv already has the stroller moving, which is both helpful and very Liv. She does not wait to be escorted out of awkwardness. She finds the exit and dares the awkwardness to keep up.
The walk to the elevator is all noise — rolling carts, overhead pages, two nurses cutting across our path.
Liv says nothing.
I say nothing.
The word wife walks with us anyway.
The elevator takes eleven seconds to arrive.
I stand between Liv and the corridor traffic until the doors open.
Inside, the noise drops away. I press G2. Iris shifts in the stroller — a small adjustment and a sigh against the harness. The display ticks from three, to two, to one.
I look at Liv. “Barkwell said she’s fine?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” It hits G. The doors open to the garage. “Good call taking her in.”
She doesn’t answer and I don’t need her to. I said it because it’s true. I also said it because I need one safe sentence between us before I deal with the word the nurse dropped in the hall.
G2 is colder than the hospital floors, and the damp air reaches us before we clear the elevator. My car is parked tight against a concrete pillar on the right side, exactly where I left it when I pulled in too fast before rounds.
Fine when I was getting out alone.
Less fine with a stroller, a rear car seat, and a sleeping baby who will wake if I so much as breathe wrong.
I pop the trunk and fold the stroller. Release, fold, lock. Four days of practice, and my hands finally know where the latches are.
Liv stands beside the car with Iris against her shoulder. The nurse’s words haven’t had time to fade, and the picture in front of me does nothing to help. Iris has one cheek pressed into Liv’s collar. Liv’s hand covers the small curve of her back.
Your wife.
I should correct the mistake in my own head, at least, and move on. The problem is not that the nurse said it. The problem is that, I wanted to hear it again.
Damp air pushes in from the ramp. Iris shifts against Liv’s collar.
“It’s cold,” I say, because that is a useful thing to say. “Let’s get her buckled in.”
I load the stroller into the trunk.
Liv opens the rear passenger door and stops.
The pillar gives her maybe a foot of room. Barely enough for her, not enough for the door to stay open on its own.
Iris is against her shoulder, one hand loose at the back of Liv’s shirt.
The door starts to swing back while Liv turns sideways.
I move in behind her and catch it before it bumps her hip.
“I’ve got it.”
My palm goes to the door. My other hand braces on the roofline. The position puts my chest behind Liv's shoulder and my arm over hers, and I am suddenly very aware of her hair, the curve of her neck, and Iris asleep between us like a reason to behave.
She leans into the car, careful with Iris’s head.
I hold the door.
She buckles one side. Then the other.
Her shoulder shifts back half an inch, not enough to touch me, close enough that I stop looking anywhere but the car seat.
The center clip snaps shut.
She steps out. I move back and close the door.
We get in, and the rain starts coming down harder.
“Thanks for talking me into a ride home,” Liv says, looking out the window.
I turn the wipers on. Double-thud, interval, double-thud.
Iris makes a sound from the back seat. A shift, a breath, and then nothing. I watch the rearview until she settles.
A block into the drive, Liv tucks her hands under her thighs — both palms flat against the seat, pressing down. I reach across the console and turn the heat up two notches. My hand moves to the passenger vent and angles it toward her.
She’s quiet for a moment.
“Thank you.”
My hand stops on the dial.
She tips her chin toward the vent.
Right. The vent.
My hand goes back to the wheel. Liv is beside me, quiet, the vent aimed at her side.
I put both hands at ten and two, like there’s a driving instructor in the passenger seat and not Liv. The road doesn’t require the attention I’m giving it. I give it anyway.
The next light turns red. I stop.
Rain hits the roof harder now.
Iris stirs.
“Almost home, bug,” I say, low enough not to wake her fully.
Liv doesn’t look over. But the corner of her mouth moves.
The light is still red. My mind goes to the shelf by my bed — one narrow spine, in the same spot it’s been for seven years.
The silence has gone on long enough that it isn’t going to fix itself.
“I had my hands inside someone’s chest today.” I keep my eyes on the road. The rain on the glass. “And I’m still terrified I’m failing this baby.”
The wipers run.
“You’re doing fine, Dr. Miller.”
My jaw shifts. My hands stay on the wheel.
“You don’t know that.”
She turns toward me slightly.
“I watched you this morning.”
My grip tightens, slow and involuntary, and I make myself let it go.
“In the hospital?”
A beat.
“With Iris.”
The light ahead turns red. I brake. Iris gives one small sound from the back seat, before settling.
“She wouldn’t stop.” I’m talking to the road. “I ran the list. Temperature. Diaper. Gas, hunger, over-stimulation, under-stimulation.” The list ran out before Iris did. “I didn’t know what to try next.”
Liv is quiet long enough for the wipers to cross twice. “You held her.”
My hands tighten again.
“You sang to her.”
Rain hits the passenger window in quick, hard taps.
“And when she kept crying, you kept holding her.”
In an OR, I know what to do when the first plan fails. I know the second plan. The third. The person to call.
With Iris, I had no next step.
Liv saw me with a crying baby against my shirt and nothing useful left to try.
She called that doing fine.
The light changes. I start driving.
My hands stay tight on the wheel until the next block.
Then my right hand drops to the center console, closer to her.
Liv turns her face toward the window.
Our building comes through the rain — the lit overhang, the lobby windows.
I turn in. The two spots near the elevator.
I pull in. Park. Kill the engine.
In the back seat, Iris doesn’t stir.
Beside me, Liv shifts. Her seatbelt releases with a sharp click, and her hand goes to the door handle.
My hand moves and catches her left wrist.
A light grasp.
“Liv. Wait.”