- 28 -
ICU Again
Mary's memory was fuzzy. She recalled an ambulance ride. Phos was also there. The paramedics almost didn't let him go with her, but when he told them her name and how to get a hold of her mother, they let him.
Mary also remembered some nurses and a surgeon. They were talking quickly and she couldn't understand what they were saying. Then, one of the nurses said, "We're going to give you something to help you sleep, okay Mary?" And everything went dark after that.
Everything was still dark now. Mary didn't know where she was or the time, feeling like she was drifting around in a dream. She couldn't open her eyes or move anything, but her ears seemed to work. She heard a soft, rhythmic beep and a mechanical hum. She also heard voices that seemed far away.
"I shouldn't have left her alone!" It was Hannah. And she was crying.
"It's all right." That one was Mom. "You didn't know the store was going to be robbed?"
"But I turned off the security alarm so that I could go outside and smoke," Hannah wept. "It's all my fault!"
"Look," Mom said professionally. "It's really late. The police have that man in custody, and the doctor said Mary is stable. You should go home and rest, Hannah."
Hannah blew her nose. "Okay. I probably need to also call Ben and let him know what happened. I'm so sorry again."
There was quiet for a moment before Mom spoke again. "You should go home, too, Carter."
Carter? Phos was there, and Mom wasn't screaming bloody murder at him?
"I…can't," he said. "Please, Ms. Phan. I know I shouldn't have gone to see her. She actually told me to leave. But please don't make me be far from her now. I'll stay in the waiting room. You won't even see me."
More quiet. Then Mom said in a shaky voice, "You don't have to do that. You can stay here. I…I actually prefer it."
Mary heard her mother begin to cry. She sounded like she was sobbing into someone's shoulder.
"It's all right, Ms. Phan," Phos said.
Mom cried for a solid few minutes before she could talk again. "I am a monster."
"No you're not," Phos said.
"Yes I am," she said. "I keep hurting the people I love. My father and mother. My daughter. I just didn't realize how much I had hurt her by keeping her from you."
"You were protecting her," he said. "Good parents do that."
"Yeah, but I did it for other reasons," she said. "I guess I was a little jealous. Ever since I was a girl, I dreamt that I'd meet a guy in some romantic way like my parents met. My own knight in shining armor. I started dating when I was eleven years old. I thought if I started early, I'd have a better chance of finding him. But I found a lot of jerks instead. My father used to say he'd die of a heart attack if I dated another jerk. After so many jerks, I started to believe that there were no knights in shining armor. When Mary met you, I wanted to believe that you were another jerk."
"I was," he said.
"But not now," she said. "Not with Mary. I was looking for any shred of jerkiness in you so that I could tell her, 'See? This is what men are like! They'll use you and leave you just like that!' But you weren't like that. You're surgical room clean."
"We broke your rules, though," he said.
"I was waiting for that," she said. "A moment to pounce. I know you two didn't do anything on the roof. But I used it to both protect and break my little girl."
Mom blew her nose. Phos said nothing.
"Do you know how I came to have her?" Mom asked.
"No," he said. "But I'd like to hear your story."
"I got pregnant the first time when I was sixteen," Mom said. "I was so scared and I didn't know what to do, so I got an abortion. I didn't tell my parents, but my father found out about it. He did everything he could to keep me in line without telling my mom. He took a huge pay cut for a job where he didn't have to travel as much. He wouldn't let me go anywhere by myself and would ride the bus with me to school. He'd take his lunch break late so that he could ride back home with me. During the summer, he made me work at his office filing stuff or cleaning out storerooms. He had me on such a short leash that I hated him.
"But of course, that didn't stop me from finding jerks. I found ways to sneak away. Sometimes my father caught me. Other times he didn't. Then things changed when I graduated from high school. My dad couldn't keep tabs on me the same way. When I went to the university, I never went to class and would go partying and be gone for days at a time. Eventually, I got pregnant again."
"What happened to that child?" Phos asked.
"I miscarried," she said. "That's how I learned that I had a hole in my uterus. It came from the abortion. I had actually wanted that one. I had wanted the first one too, but—" Mom blew her nose again. "Then my father died. They say it was from lung cancer, but I felt like I was responsible. That I had broken his heart too many times and he just couldn't hang on anymore and wait for me to get my act together. I felt like I had killed my own father, who worked everyday of his life at a job he hated so that I could keep screwing around."
"And Mary?" Phos asked.
Mom smirked. "You think I would've learned my lesson by then. But of course I didn't. I kept partying. Kept drinking. Kept doing whatever I could to not feel anything or think straight enough to face what kind of monster I was. And I got pregnant again. When I went to the doctor, she told me that with my condition, my chances of successfully carrying this baby to full term were almost zero. And if I tried to have her, it was possible my whole uterus would come out, too. That's how bad off I was. She recommended I abort."
"Why didn't you?" he asked.
Mom cleared her throat. "When I was told that this baby might not survive, I don't know what happened. But I realized how badly I wanted her. I hadn't wanted anything so much. Not even a knight in shining armor. I felt like if I were to succeed at only one thing in my life, I wanted to be able to have this baby. So, I went home. I begged my mother to help me. And just like the great woman she is, she did. When Mary was born, I felt like the sun had broken through some clouds that had covered me for years. I cleaned up and never looked back at that woman I was before. Mary saved my life."
Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Phos said softly, "Thank you for telling me. I understand better why you want to protect Mary so much."
Another moment of silence. Then Mom said, "I'm glad you were there tonight. If she had died, I—I don't—"
Mom fell back into sobs.
Mary heard a different beep. Something cold flowed into her veins. Then she was pulled back into the darkness where even her ears didn't work.
***
Mary drifted back into dreaming, but this time she felt extremely hot. She couldn't open her eyes or move again, but her ears picked up a beautiful voice. It spoke softly and sounded familiar. "Phos. There is nothing I can do."
"You helped before, Mayim," he said. "Humans are mostly water. You work with water all the time."
"This is not the same as a burn," Mayim said. "This is an infection. Her body needs to fight it on its own. Let it do what it was made to."
"I'm not talking about the infection," he said.
They said nothing for a moment. Then Mayim spoke. "I see. That is definitely beyond my ability."
Mary felt a familiar hand take hers. With her fever, it didn't feel as hot as it normally did.
"We are supposed to protect humans," he said. "And I cannot even protect her from this."
"The only one who can help her is the Master," Mayim said.
"I know," he said. "But I cannot ask him."
"He might heal her."
"He'll definitely take her memory," he said. "If the judges don't find her first."
"Ah," she said. "That is why you asked me for more rain. To hide her energy from them."
Who was this "Master" they mentioned? Mary wanted to ask, but she couldn't move her mouth.
"Phos," Mayim said. "Do you not think it is time? How long have you been pretending to be human?"
"I was trying to protect her," he said.
"But are you protecting her?" Mayim asked. "By being here? By breaking the rules?"
He didn't answer.
"Maybe it is time to let her go," Mayim said. "Maybe it is time to give the boy back his body and go back to how things were. Perhaps the judges or the Master will never know."
No! Mary wanted to shout. Phos couldn't leave her. Not now. Not yet. She needed him.
The soft beep and the cool liquid in her veins came back, and Mary was under again.
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