Dr. Jamison nodded. “Lots of people in your corner, Jenny. It’s going to be fine.”
He finished whatever he was doing and pulled down the sheet. He lifted my knees out of the stirrups and laid them gently back on the bed. The relief was so great to be out of the position that I almost cried out.
“Rest a little if you can,” he said. “You’re going to be up a lot in the next few weeks.” He patted my arm. “You did great.”
“She’s really okay?” I asked.
“Seven is a great score. Her lungs were good. They’ll make sure.”
I nodded. I was so tired. So tired.
Tina found a wet washcloth by the bed and pressed it to my head. “Darion knows these people,” she said. “He’ll make sure it’s all done right.”
I reached up and pressed the cool cloth against my eyes.
Holy hell, I’d done it.
Chapter 5: Corabelle
I followed the team down the hall from the birthing suites to the NICU. Chance strode behind them, his face tight with concern.
I knew what Jenny was feeling right now, watching your baby get rolled away from you. My heart squeezed and I tried to put the memories of my own baby, Finn, out of my mind.
But everything around me brought it back. The door decorations with the streamers and teddy bears in blue or pink. The echoes of crying babies and hushed conversations of family. Even the shhrrrr sound of the wheels on the smooth waxed floor.
As we approached the glassed wall of the NICU, I stopped dead. I couldn’t go in there. No way. My heart hammered fiercely, and my palms sweated. Through the window I could see the rows of cribs, mothers rocking in padded chairs.
I felt faint. I realized I was holding my breath. I hadn’t done that in ages, my old coping strategy to make myself go unconscious when life got too hard. I thought I was better, but I could see now that no matter how happy my current life got, my past never left me.
The nurses pushed the crib with Jenny’s baby between the sliding doors, but Darion stayed with me. “They won’t let you in right now anyway,” he said.
I nodded, focusing on my breathing. Air in, air out. Even though we were outside the windows and couldn’t hear any sounds from inside the NICU, my ears roared with the helicopter chh chh chh of a ventilator. I could picture Finn lying in his crib, that terrible sound the only thing we heard for the seven days he lived.
It was the most horrible noise imaginable, although there was one that was worse.
The silence after the machine was turned off.
My eyes started to show polka dots. I had forgotten to breathe again. I sucked in a great gasp of air.
Darion took my arm. “Corabelle, are you okay?” he asked.
I had to act normal. “You can go in, right?” I asked, forcing my voice steady. “Jenny wanted us to watch over the baby.”
“I think I’ll stay here with you.” He moved farther down the window, to another room where babies were cleaned and weighed. A set of grandparents were there, watching a newborn girl get washed. The father was inside, taking pictures and beaming.
Moments I never got. Remorse bubbled over. I thought I was handling Jenny’s pregnancy fine. She was my best friend. I was happy for her. But all the resentment and bitterness and jealousy I’d held in for nine months suddenly spilled out.
Why was she getting a baby and I wasn’t?
She hadn’t even known Chance’s last name when it happened!
Why did everything bad have to happen to me?
Darion’s hand pressed into my back, and I realized I was panting. “Do you need to take a little break from all this?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. There was nothing I could say. If I walked away, it meant I couldn’t manage, couldn’t control my feelings. If I didn’t, I would continue to suffer, to nurse all these negative, terrible emotions.
“I’m sure Tina is having a hard time too,” Darion said. “Sometimes I come through this ward and see her here, forehead against the glass.”
I had no idea she did that. “Why does she torture herself that way?” I asked.
“She pushed her pain aside for a long time. Now she knows she has to actually work through it to get to the other side.”
Working through it. I wondered if I had done that. If Gavin had. I wasn’t sure what that really meant. Mostly you just kept on going.
I looked back through the window. A nurse was dressing the other baby in a white long-sleeved onesie and pink-striped hat. The infant tightened her eyes every time her father flashed another picture.
“Should you go check on Jenny’s baby?” I asked.